Hi, some oberservations on (de-)installing and upgrading kernels (Debian/unstable, but valid also for stable and testing and to some extend for other distributions):
- If needed a kernel package installation will generate and install a /boot/initrd.img-<kernel-version> automatically. However, this file is not part of package kernel-image-<version> and therefore it will not be removed when the kernel package is removed - it must be deleted manually. If you forget this a small /boot partition will be filled up pretty soon (2.6.x kernels have ~ 4MB of initrd.img on my box!). Wouldn't it be better to remove this initrd.img automatically while uninstalling a kernel package? - /etc/modules.conf and /etc/modules depend on the kernel version. Both files are not owned by any package but it seems to me that they are modified by package modutils (also module-init-tools?). At least they have their man-pages in these packages. Despite their kernel dependency their filenames do not carry any indication of a version like, e.g., /boot/System.map-<...> and other files in /boot. This can be very nasty if you switch back and forth between 2.4 and 2.6 kernels: Modules and their names have changed considerably, so these files can usually not be used for both kernel series. At least for /etc/modules it would be cleaner to have multiple files with their names indicating the corresponding kernel version - I would even like to see them in the /boot directory instead of /etc. Similarly for /etc/modules.conf: Although, I do not know enough about the changes from 2.4 to 2.6 where for the latter there is a new modprobe.conf file or a modprobe.d directory. Do these new file/directory interfere with an old modules.conf? Nevertheless, if you want to boot different kernels with different modules some versioning of mod(ules|probe).(conf|d) would be helpful. (A nice hack in this direction can be found in http://www.dhaller.de/linux/multikernel.html (in German - sorry). Any objections, agreements, comments? Rudolf -- Rudolf Lohner - Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH) Rechenzentrum, Zirkel 2, D-76128 Karlsruhe Phone: +49-721-608-6958, Fax: +49-721-32550 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/~Rudolf.Lohner -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
