On Thu, 4 Mar 2010 11:46:06 -0500 (EST), Marc Auslander wrote: > > having installed the bigmem kernel package, should I then remove the > regular kernel package? > > my concern is that if I don't, the next update to it will replace vmlinuz > with the regular kernel. > > or are the installers smart enough to avoid that?
There are two issues here: the kernels themselves and the symbolic links used by bootloaders such as lilo. If the kernel image package names are different, then the package management system will keep them straight. You don't need to worry about a "bigmem" kernel getting updates from a non-bigmem kernel. The vmlinuz symbolic link generally points to the most recently installed kernel image. Its companion symbolic link, initrd.img, points to the initial RAM filesystem image that goes with it. vmlinuz.old generally points to the next most recently installed kernel, and its companion symbolic link, initrd.img.old, generally points to the initial RAM filesystem image that goes with it. It is a good idea to check them manually to make sure they point where you want them to point after applying maintenance. If in doubt, manually run lilo too. Then shutdown and reboot. If you have more than two kernels installed, only two are generally bootable through a bootloader such as lilo which uses symbolic links. You might as well purge the non-bootable ones, since all they're doing is taking up space. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/296220991.16763271267723545136.javamail.r...@md01.wow.synacor.com
