Arch Linux

jr_west

Member

Registered: 2022-09-13

Posts: 11

How to freeze kernel version. Which packages?

I'd like to peg the kernel to the currently installed version. So I added linux-zen and linux-zen-headers to IgnorePkg in pacman.conf.

But this isn't enough. Recently some package got updated that caused the new_root UUID to change, and I couldn't boot until I upgraded the kernel. (via booting to ram image).

Can I freeze a set of packages and have a stable system? Does anyone know the set packages that need to be frozen?

Bonus: How would I figure this out on my own?

Last edited by jr_west (2023-04-05 17:04:33)

Roken

Member

From: South Wales, UK

Registered: 2012-01-16

Posts: 1,358

Re: How to freeze kernel version. Which packages?

Why are you freezing at all? I've been using linux-zen for ages, and have only had one breakage. I keep the lts around for such an eventuality, but haven't needed it since. My system is rock solid.

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Linux user #545703

/ is the root of all problems.

jr_west

Member

Registered: 2022-09-13

Posts: 11

Re: How to freeze kernel version. Which packages?

The usual reasons:

1) I want to control when I need to reboot (new drivers don't load on old kernels that are still running)
2) I want to decide when to upgrade based on the change list
3) I want to work with specific alpha-features that exist only in specific versions
4) I want  to coordinate versions between different machines for reproducable tests.

Or any of the zillion of other reasons people peg versions of things.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,197

Re: How to freeze kernel version. Which packages?

The kernel is fairly safe to freeze and these two packages are the ones you need to freeze (... breakage here in terms of dependants are pahole and potentially glibc, neither of which are going to have general updates all that often). All of your other points are going to run you into partial upgrade territory with many other packages and you need to be very weary of what you are doing https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System … nsupported

The UUID change will have likely been systemd and the implicit udev rule trigger that was recently added to the package, there's a discussion on that behaviour here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/77789

FWIW the "need to reboot after kernel update" can be mitigated with https://archlinux.org/packages/communit … ules-hook/

Last edited by V1del (2023-04-05 19:30:49)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,726

Re: How to freeze kernel version. Which packages?

The UUID is a property of the filesystem, it's not going to change on it's own. You're making bad assumptions about what happened and what actually fixed it.

jr_west

Member

Registered: 2022-09-13

Posts: 11

Re: How to freeze kernel version. Which packages?

All of your other points are going to run you into partial upgrade territory with many other packages and you need to be very weary of what you are doing

I see. Makes sense. Maybe it is an unreasonable ask for a rolling release distro (or at least fighting against the grain).
Maybe I'll look into nix, or similar for this type of work.