When I boot to a 2.6.30 kernel uname -r tells me I have 2.6.28.7 !!!

paulfxh · 2009-08-20 17:48:57

I'm embarrassed to say that I thought I had solved this problem on which I had already posted.
I'm trying to install Arch Linux 2009-08 on a primary partition of my EeePC 901 and I'm following this guide (using the first method shown i.e. dd image to usb key).
I'm using the archlinux-2009.08-core-i686.img image and i've downloaded it from quite a few different mirrors. Although this image is supposed to contain the 2.6.30-ARCH kernel, almost every time I've installed it, uname -r tells me I have a 2.6.28.7 kernel.
What's worse is that the 2.6.28.7 does NOT contain modules for networking or wireless on the EeePC 901 whereas the 2.6.30-ARCH kernel does. So, when I boot up, no network connection is made which means I can't upgrade or install stuff.
Now on just one occasion, when I did what I believe I have done on every other install attempt, a network (eth0) connection WAS made on boot and uname -r showed 2.6.30-ARCH. However, my euphoria was short-lived as, for reasons that are beyond me, I suddenly lost the network connection and now uname -r showed 2.6.28.7.
I have also downloaded from here (on another active partition I have on my EeePC 901) the 2.6.30.5 kernel especially for the EeePC (kernel-eee-2.6.30.5-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz). I was then able to move this over to my Arch partition and install it with

pacman -U kernel-eee-2.6.30.5-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz

It seemed to install fine and vmlinuzeee showed up in /boot. So, I modified my /boot/grub/menu.lst (no initrd.img) and booted to vmlinuzeee. Well, it booted fine but uname -r still said I had a 2.6.28.7 kernel which, if course, meant no network connection.
I have tried quite a few other options to try and get the elusive 2.6.30 kernel to show up but to no avail. Googling seems to indicate that this is certainly not a common problem.
Can anybody help me understand what's going on here?

konni · 2009-08-21 09:41:11

double check your menu.lst, maybe try the stock arch kernel from core. it works flawlessly on my eee 1008ha.

Andrwe · 2009-08-21 09:56:53

Also check if you'd mounted your boot partition before updating the kernel.
Have a look in /boot/ while the partition isn't mounted if there are kernel files then you forgot to mount.
In this case copy the files to /tmp/ or something like this then mount /boot and cp the files to /boot.

paulfxh · 2009-08-21 12:35:35

Thank you for the replies (both from the same city )
But here's something really weird in an already weird story:
This morning, I had the intention to follow konni's recommendation and install (or more correctly re-install) the 2.6.30.5 kernel.
So, I downloaded the kernel (tar.gz) as well as its four dependencies (which are almost certainly already there but just to be sure) in another partition on my computer and moved them over to the Arch /home directory.
Then I booted into Arch but this time the network connection was made on boot and I had the 2.6.30-ARCH kernel.konni
Quite honestly, I had done absolutely NOTHING to induce this change. I booted several times since then and always the 2.6.30-ARCH kernel showed up as well as the network connection.
Now as I've been trying to get this to work for a few days, I actually have three stanzas in my /boot/grub/menu.lst (actually, I have Grub from Ubuntu in my mbr and use this to boot several OSes that I have on this box) to boot Arch.
In the first case, I have copied both vmlinuz26 and kernel26.img from /boot on the Arch / partition to /boot/arch on the Ubuntu /.
Then I boot with this stanza in the Ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst

# (0) Arch Linux
title          Arch Linux
root           (hd1,1)   
kernel         /boot/arch/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1                          
initrd         /boot/arch/kernel26.img

where (hd1,1) is /dev/sdb2 where I have my Ubuntu / and /dev/sdb1 is the Arch /
As of this morning, this boots fine and the 2.6.30-ARCH kernel shows up. However, I can't be confident that this will persist as has already happened.
In addition, I had created a boot partition for Arch on /dev/sdb8 and used the following stanza in the Ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst to get it to boot

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux from Arch Boot partition
root   (hd1,7)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

As of this morning this also boots fine and provides the 2.6.30-ARCH kernel.
A third attempt that I had made was to download (on the Ubuntu partition) the kernel-eee-2.6.30.5-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz kernel, moved it over to the Arch partition and installed with

pacman -U kernel-eee-2.6.30.5-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz

This caused vmlinuzeee to appear in /boot, so I used this stanza in Ubuntu's /boot/grub/menu.lst to boot it

# (0) Arch Linux Eee (2.6.30-Eee)
title  Arch Linux Eee 2.6.30.EEE from Arch Boot partition
root   (hd1,7)
kernel /vmlinuzeee root=/dev/sdb1 ro

This time, although it boots fine, uname-r shows the kernel as 2.6.28.7 and no network connection is made.
In response to Andrwe's suggestion to check if the /boot partition is being mounted or not, the unmounted partition shows nothing. However, I'm a little puzzled about this as an unmounted partition by definition has to appear empty.
As of now, it seems that what I have can work but only sometimes which implies a certain level of human temperament which, while it can't be ruled out, still seems an unlikely explanation.
I really would love to hear the views of those more familiar with Arch than I am (which probably doesn't rule out too many

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-20 17:48:57

When I boot to a 2.6.30 kernel uname -r tells me I have 2.6.28.7 !!!

#2 2009-08-21 09:41:11

Re: When I boot to a 2.6.30 kernel uname -r tells me I have 2.6.28.7 !!!

#3 2009-08-21 09:56:53

Re: When I boot to a 2.6.30 kernel uname -r tells me I have 2.6.28.7 !!!

#4 2009-08-21 12:35:35

Re: When I boot to a 2.6.30 kernel uname -r tells me I have 2.6.28.7 !!!

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