the wiki mainly refers to custom builds. the stock kernels can be installed together easily because the 2.6 kernel files that go into /boot are named differently to the 2.4 files, which defeats th whole point of my whole question. I could have discovered this earlier via trial and error, which i eventually did, but having lost the kernel from another distro last time i was not keen to do it again!
you can load the stock config file (it's hidden under /var/abs somewhere), and compile the kernel with that file. it'll be practically the same as the stock, maybe even faster cuz you'll be compiling specifically for your machine.
]]>vmlinuz26 > vmlinuz26.old whatever....
/usr/src etc.....
O & don't forget that you keep a copy of kernel package in /var/cache/pacman/pkg handy if you need to go back for any reason...
HTH
Don't delete the thread it may help others ....
]]>you can delete this thread by deleting your first post.
if i can i can't find find the option
you can install multiple kernels using following the multiple kernels howto in the wiki
the wiki mainly refers to custom builds. the stock kernels can be installed together easily because the 2.6 kernel files that go into /boot are named differently to the 2.4 files, which defeats th whole point of my whole question. I could have discovered this earlier via trial and error, which i eventually did, but having lost the kernel from another distro last time i was not keen to do it again!
]]>One reason (among many) for not reflecting kernel versions in the kernel name is that it'd never automatically update, which is sort of bad.
]]>In these days were people often have more than one kernel for more than one distro installed in the same /boot some have broken with the standard (if it is a standard) of using vmlinuz as the kernel name. given pacman is so easy to use to install kernels it makes it VERY easy (or hard) to overwrite your current kernel that is called vmlinuz - i overwrote my vector kernel when i inadvertantly untarred a kernel package - which obviously bypassed the conflict checks.
why can the names of the kernel files not be altered to reflect their version to allow easier install of several kernels?
On to my question - i wish to install and test the new 2.6.8 kernel on my arch system - i am using the latest 2.4 at the mo and am very happy with so i want to be able to dual boot either kernel. what steps do i need to take specifically to prevent an overwrite of important files?
i know i need to rename the current kernel files (which ones tho?), add a new entry to lilo and alter the old ones.
Do i need to do anything else?
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