Arch Linux

elParaguayo

Member

Registered: 2018-03-30

Posts: 51

[Solved] Arch on a server - do I need to upgrade kernel at all?

I've been using Arch on my laptop for a couple of years now, absolutely love it, have learnt loads and feel quite comfortable on it. That said, I still feel this question is best posted in the Newbie Corner...

I've got a media server running Kodi, Plex, Logitech Media Server and TVHeadend on Ubuntu 16.04. For various reasons, I'd like to upgrade the underlying OS for this server and, having enjoyed Arch so much on the laptop, was wondering whether it would be a good option.

The main issue I foresee is in respect of the drivers for my DVB tuners for recording TV. The drivers are in the AUR (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/tbs-linux_media-git) so there's no issue getting the code. However, my understanding is that I need to recompile the drivers every time the kernel is upgraded. The compilation for these drivers is a fairly slow process and updates for the kernel, even the LTS, are very frequent so it's not a process I'd like to do regularly. That said, I do still want to keep other software up to date.

My question is therefore hopefully a relatively simple one: Will anything break if I tell pacman to permanently ignore kernel upgrades (i.e. are there other packages that will break if I don't upgrade it)?

If the answer is that a rolling release model is not appropriate for my needs then I'll look at another OS but I'd prefer to use Arch if at all possible.

Apologies if this is a silly question.

Last edited by elParaguayo (2020-04-24 14:47:51)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,408

Website

Re: [Solved] Arch on a server - do I need to upgrade kernel at all?

Will anything break if I tell pacman to permanently ignore kernel upgrades

No.  At least not for a very long time.  The only harm in not upgrading the kernel is that you will not get any security patches which might be important for a server.  But there's good news:

my understanding is that I need to recompile the drivers every time the kernel is upgraded.

That is only true of the non-dkms package.  Use the dkms version and this will not be a problem.

edit: I suppose if the dkms rebuild takes a long time, that might still be an issue, but it's all automated and handled by pacman.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-04-24 14:34:11)

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

elParaguayo

Member

Registered: 2018-03-30

Posts: 51

Re: [Solved] Arch on a server - do I need to upgrade kernel at all?

Trilby,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I had taken a look at DKMS on the wiki earlier today as it sounded like it might be helpful. However, I guess I misunderstood how it worked because I thought it just automated the rebuilding of the modules.

Is there something simple I can read which explains why that isn't the case?

EDIT: To be clear, my issue is the compilation time not the compilation itself.

Last edited by elParaguayo (2020-04-24 14:37:18)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,408

Website

Re: [Solved] Arch on a server - do I need to upgrade kernel at all?

See my edit.  It does (just) automate the rebuilding.  But you install the AUR package once, and then never need to update the AUR package.  There's just a pacman hook so when the kernel gets upgraded, the modules is rebuilt.  I suspect this will be quite a bit faster than rebuilding the static aur package from source, but it might still take a while.  But this all runs with pacman - just like rebuilding initramfs.  So the pacman upgrade could take longer - but there's no requirements on you.  The server would still be running - so what'd be the harm?

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

elParaguayo

Member

Registered: 2018-03-30

Posts: 51

Re: [Solved] Arch on a server - do I need to upgrade kernel at all?

Trilby, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound so bad. It also sounds like I could still ignore the kernel and do regular upgrades of everything else and then, less frequently, upgrade the kernel and modules.

Thanks for the explanations - marking this as solved.