Arch Linux

spotslayer

Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2006-09-09

Posts: 22

New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

I saw this thread and it has confused me.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … highlight=

I installed arch a few weeks ago and all is going pretty well. I have done an -Suy which upgraded the kernel. That went well also. I rebooted and it worked fine. No kernel panic. This is what confused me these folks are reporting kernel panic and I had none. Is there something inadvertant I have done that was correct. Is there something that needs to be done before a kernel upgrade? I am coming from SuSE which does everything for you, where you don't have to think. I prefer the arch philosiphy but would like to know what this is about and how I can prevent it.

TNX
David

Klette

Member

Registered: 2005-05-20

Posts: 27

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

Not really, just in special cases. When we switches to mkinitcpio for instance.

If something needs to be done, pacman should tell you

detto

Member

Registered: 2006-01-23

Posts: 510

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

I rebooted and it worked fine. No kernel panic. This is what confused me these folks are reporting kernel panic and I had none.

You want to have a kernel panic? Used to from SUSE?
Well, the arch way is also that things just work (that is my experience though). You're using the stock arch kernel which always is a good choice unless you get into trouble with it or need more functionality from other kernels like the -beyond (which is a rare case, i always use stock one).

cheers,
deTTo

ralvez

Member

From: Canada

Registered: 2005-12-06

Posts: 1,718

Website

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

I have been using Arch for about a year and something ... and never had a problem with the kernel due to an update.
I'm not sure what the issue with the other guy was (at the end of the day he/she did not explain anything about the system or post errors) that led to the postings but unless you like to poke around with things like your boot loader and kernel modules and do some customizations and why not ... I doubt you will run into such problems.

After 9 years of using Linux as my sole operating system for servers and desktop I have become quite proficient using it, however, I have never messed with kernerls (as to make a custom kernel) so I could be missing something here; therefore, if someone has a few "words of wisdom" beyond this please do post.

Between now and then ... I would not worry much. :smile:

1c3d0g

Member

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 81

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

That's good to know, ralvez. The last thing I need is a kernel throwing up errors, ruining my day.

T-Dawg

Forum Fellow

From: Charlotte, NC

Registered: 2005-01-29

Posts: 2,736

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

Most people wont have a problem with mkinitcpio after upgrades. Arch uses a default image which has all the modules you need to boot. Such as all hard drive drivers and all filesytem drivers. The problem normally comes when people try to modify the config for initcpio to load only their modules instead of all of them.

spotslayer

Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2006-09-09

Posts: 22

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

No I don't want to have kernel panic and in the five years I have been using SuSE I have never had one with SuSE. I have been able to get to kernel panic once about three years ago, but that was with Damn Small Linux.

I just read the other post and it indicated that it happened with every upgrade. That did not seem right to me. That is where I got confused as I had done an upgrade and did not have a problem. I felt sure ther must be another side to things and now I think it has been explained. I use my computer for work and need it to be very reliable.

I have also used only linux on my personel computer since Red Hat 7.2. Not sure how many years that is, but must be seven or eight. I am forced at times to use windows(spit) but much prefer the ease of linux.

David

Lone_Wolf

Forum Moderator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,969

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

The user in that post had Lilo installed as bootloader.
After EVERY kernel update you MUST re-run lilo, or you will get a kernel panic at next boot.

Grub doesn't have this problem, but it's just the way lilo works.
That user would have that problem on any distro that expects you to do things yourself.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

ralvez

Member

From: Canada

Registered: 2005-12-06

Posts: 1,718

Website

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

Well, that's funny !! I had to use lilo in one of my machines becasue grub would not work but whenever I do an update I just type pacman -Syu && lilo if there is a kernel update lilo will be udated if there is no kernel update runing lilo will do  no harm.
Perhaps he/she should be doing the same 

projektdotnet

Member

Registered: 2006-10-06

Posts: 10

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

I had a problem once with reiser not being loaded by default. Just added it right after the IDE stuff in my mkinitcpio and I stopped having problems

brain0

Developer

From: Aachen - Germany

Registered: 2005-01-03

Posts: 1,382

Re: New to arch and confuse with kernel upgrades

I had a problem once with reiser not being loaded by default. Just added it right after the IDE stuff in my mkinitcpio and I stopped having problems

These problems occured in the beginning. But now filesystem detection should be fine, except for reiser4.