[NTLUG:Discuss] Upgrading Kenrel

Thu Apr 28 15:23:34 CDT 2005

>         I went to www.linux.org and saw 2 complete linux kernels, 
> 2.4.30 and 2.6.11.7. From the discussion at the last NTLUG meeting I 
> am lead to believe that, since the last 2 numbers are odd, 2.6.11.7 is 
> not truly stable.  I down loaded 2.4.30 and started to read the 

You misunderstood the new naming (or have outdated information)

2.6.xx is the release of the kernel controlled by Linus et al.

There is a group of individuals who have taken on the responsibility of
maintaining .11 while the kernel developers work towards .12.  (These are
referred to extra stable kernels in some descriptions).  The 'charter' for
.11.n is this (see http://kerneltrap.org/node/4803):

Greg KH announced the first maintenance release of the 2.6.11 kernel [story
[1]], 2.6.11.1. Quickly acting on the recent lengthy discussion regarding
kernel release numbering [story [2]] [story [3]], Greg and Chris Wright have
begun to maintain this branch. With each 2.6.x release, they will maintain
2.6.x.y releases available from your nearest kernel.org mirror [4]. This
first maintenance release includes three simple patches, not including the
makefile change, addressing a problem with keyboards on Dell machines, and
raid6 compilation on the ppc [5] architecture. Andrew Morton [interview [6]]
noted that he has additional fixes appropriate for this tree that will
likely lead to a 2.6.11.2 release in the relatively near future.

Greg went on to highlight the requirements for patches to be able to be
merged into this new tree: they must be no bigger than 100 lines, they must
fix only one thing, they must fix real bugs that are confirmed to be
affecting people, and they must fix a build error, an oops, a hang, or a
real security issue. Patches explicitly not allowed include things to fix
"theoretical race conditions" without an exploit, or "trivial" fixes like
spelling changes or whitespace cleanups. Greg described the effort's mantra
as "release early and often".

All of that said, upgrading by hand is a bear.  Do the latest Debian
release(s) offer an 'upgrade' install - that might be a lot simpler.

-----Burton

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org] On Behalf
Of Terry
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 2:11 PM
To: NTLUG Discussion List
Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Upgrading Kenrel

See: http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050101

On 4/28/05, Tom Hayden <tom.hayden.iii at mail.airmail.net> wrote:
> I am currently using Debian 3.0 R4 I3. The Kernel is 2.2.20. My 
> computer is an HP pavilion a450n. It has a Pentium 4 at 3 GHz. I have 
> 2 160 Gb hard drives, 1 with Windows XP on it and the other with Linux 
> on it. (I use lilo for multi-boot). It has an NVidia 5200 graphics 
> card and a USRobotics 5610 PCI modem. Neither the Nvidia or the PCI 
> modem is supported by Linux 2.2.XX. There also appears to be an issue 
> with the sound card. I need/want to upgrade the kernel to take care of 
> these hardware issues and any others I am unaware of.
>         I went to www.linux.org and saw 2 complete linux kernels, 
> 2.4.30 and 2.6.11.7. From the discussion at the last NTLUG meeting I 
> am lead to believe that, since the last 2 numbers are odd, 2.6.11.7 is 
> not truly stable.  I down loaded 2.4.30 and started to read the 
> documentation. It listed several other packages I need to down load in 
> order to compile the kernel. I located all of them and started to read 
> the documentation only to found references to other packages I am not 
> sure are in my distribution. Also, the installation procedures for 
> these various packages are not always clear. I also found what appears 
> to be 2 different installation/compilation procedures for the kernel it's
self.
> I am afraid I am going to get into an endless cycle of hunting down 
> ever more software packages with ever more confusing instructions. Any 
> guidance I can get will be appreciated.
> 
> Ralph Green, Jr. wrote:
> > Howdy,
> >   A little more information on your system would be in order here.  
> > I am sure you could find the kernel sources, but there is probably 
> > more to it than that.  A newer kernel usually goes along with newer 
> > libraries, such as glibc.  The more we know, the better your answer will
be.
> >   Are you running debian stable, or just a really old distro?  What 
> > drives your need to go to the 2.4 kernel?  Should you just go to the 
> > 2.6 kernel, which is the current stable version of Linux?  Lots of 
> > other questions occur to me, but I don't know enough about your 
> > needs to know which ones to ask.
> > Good luck,
> > Ralph
> >
> > On Thu, 2005-04-28 at 00:51 -0500, Tom Hayden wrote:
> >
> >>I have determined that I need to upgrade my Kernel from version 2.2 
> >>to version 2.4. What is the best way to do this?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > https://ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
> >
> 
> --
> Tom Hayden III
> 
> Coherent solutions for chaotic situations
> 
> tom.hayden.iii at mail.airmail.net
> 214-435-4174
> 
> 1531 San Antone ln.
> Lewisville Texas 75077
> 
> _______________________________________________
> https://ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>

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