At 11:17 PM 4/21/2001 -0600, Vincent Danen wrote:
>On Sat Apr 21, 2001 at 09:14:04PM -0400, Dan Swartzendruber wrote:
>
> > I've been running 7.2 for a couple of months now (2.2.17). Yesterday,
> > while doing the MandrakeUpdate, it told me 2.2.19 was available and
> > recommended, due to a number of security issues. I did the update of the
> > kernel, sources, etc. Now, several hours later, I've finally managed to
> > restore my system to usability (back on 2.2.17). Issues that came up:
> >
> > 1. The kernel source tree was unusable. Attempts to do menuconfig failed
> >due to tk segv'ing. Attempts to do xconfig failed due to a number of
> >(apparently) missing config files pertaining to ipsec and other
> >security things.
>
>I'm not sure what this is about. I've asked the fellow (Matthias) who
>did most of the build work for the kernel about it but, considering
>it's the weekend, we might have to wait a bit to find out if something
>is missing or something was included wrong.
I did finally get a build by doing 'make config' and scrolling through
manually. ugh :)
> > 2. I've been running 100% reiserfs since the 2nd day on 2.2.17, and was
> >chagrined to discover that the 2.2.19 package apparently didn't
> >include a 2.2.19 initrd image, and attempting to use the 2.2.17
> >image didn't work, since the reiserfs module wouldn't load under
> >the 2.2.19 kernel, so the root FS couldn't load. I managed to get
> >around this by uncompressing the 2.2.17 image, loopback mounting
> >it, copying in a 2.2.19 reiserfs module, etc...
>
>You didn't follow instructions then. You need to execute:
>
>mkinitrd --ifneeded /boot/initrd-2.2.19-4.1mdk.img 2.2.19-4.1mdk
What instructions? I did the upgrade via MandrakeUpdate, which didn't show
me anything about special instructions. If I'm not supposed to do kernel
updates via MandrakeUpdate, I didn't know that yesterday. Live and learn I
guess...
>Now you have your initrd image.
>
> > 3. Apparently as part of the rpm "upgrade", my 2.2.17 kernel source
> >tree was rendered unusable. i.e. makefiles, etc were removed so
> >that I couldn't even build a new 2.2.17 kernel or modules.
>
>If you upgraded the kernel-source package, then yes, the 2.2.17
>sources would have been removed. If you *installed* the 2.2.19
>kernel-source package, then you would have both installed.
But it didn't just remove them - it left the linux-2.2.17 source tree, but
it was all munged up. As far as upgrading vs installing, I wasn't aware I
had an option (vis-a-vis MandrakeUpdate). I just checked the update again,
and now I'm seeing a warning at the front of the description for the 2.2.19
kernel stuff about not using MandrakeUpdate. I don't remember seeing that
yesterday, was that added since then? It certainly seems like a good idea,
given what can happen...
> > 4. One of my older IDE drives started having odd messages printed
> >out (about timeouts and such) - never a problem under 2.2.17.
>
>No idea what this is, but I get some extraneous messages under 2.2.19
>as well (such as messages regarding parallel ports, etc.).
Well, these were kind of scary, since this is the drive /home is mounted on.
> > #4 may be a random (harmless?) bug. #3 might have conceivably have
> >been something I did wrong (don't see how, though, as all of the
> >2.2.17 /lib/modules stuff was also deleted as part of the "upgrade".
>
>Right. Because you *upgraded*. Upgrades do not keep things from
>older packages. When you upgrade kernel-sources-2.2.17 to
>kernel-sources-2.2.19 you are in essence uninstalling 2.2.17 and
>installing 2.2.19.
sorry if i was unclear. obviously i didn't expect the /lib/modules stuff
to still be around - i mentioned it as evidence that i had done the upgrade
as i had thought. again, i didn't understand why the source tree was
partly still there.
> > #2 sounds like a build booboo (if you're upgrading a system from
> >2.2.17 to 2.2.19, most likely the modules in the old initrd
> >image won't be usable by the new kernel, no?)
>
>No, and they're not supposed to be. You're supposed to read
>instructions or know enough to check for the presence of a valid
>initrd.img and build it if it doesn't exist. FYI, you only need the
>initrd if you use reiserfs on your / partition. Otherwise you will
>not need it.
I *did* check for its presence. When I saw there wasn't one, I assumed
there were no problems (obviously wrong on my part). What you are missing
is this: there is a chicken&egg problem in doing this as you describe. As
soon as I do the download of the 2.2.19 kernel stuff, the 2.2.17 modules
are gone, including the loopback.o module, which I need to create the new
initrd image. At this point, I'm still running on the 2.2.17 kernel, so
the 2.2.19 loopback.o module won't do me any good. If I try to boot from
the new 2.2.19 kernel, I can't mount the root filesystem.
> > #1 is just plain bogu
