[Techtalk] kernel upgrades

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2001 at 11:36:30AM +0100 or thereabouts, Telsa Gwynne wrote:
> If you need to build a kernel to get support for something or
> turn some option on, then normally the process is to get the
> sources and build it yourself. You can still make an rpm, although I
> am not quite sure how you install the result. For an rpm, you 
> would need to get a recent "-ac" kernel, one of Alan Cox's kernels. 

Amazing how kernel hackers wander past -after- you've sent a
"I don't exactly know" email! Update to that bit: 

Apparently this "make rpm" feature is also in the main tree for 2.4.12.
(And 2.4.11 but "you don't want that". I dunno why.) 

And you do:

	make menuconfig (answer questions)
	make rpm

No make modules, no make clean, etc.

Then you install it with rpm -i for rpm --install. Note, _not_
rpm -U (rpm --upgrade). Installing just puts the new one there
and leaves the old one alone. Upgrading will nuke the old
known-to-work one before you have tested the new one. This
might be bad...

One thing the rpm you make this way will not do is upgrade the
lilo stuff. So you have to do that yourself. As people have
already said, the sensible thing to do is to leave the old
kernel as the 'default' in lilo and make "linux-my-first-kernel"
or "linux-2.4.12" (or whatever) something you have to specifically
ask for at the lilo boot prompt. You can always move them around
after.

Telsa