From: Henrik Ingo (hingomulti.fi)
Date: Fri Dec 05 2003 - 02:39:14 CST

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On Thursday 04 December 2003 11:46, Buchan Milne wrote:
> > What was the reason again that this
> > wasn't done by mandrake update??
>
> Too many people would wipe out their running kernel, so the kernel
> packages have a name of %{name}-%{version} (instead of just %{name}), so
> 'rpm -Uvh kernel*.rpm' won't remove the previous kernel any more.

It is imho wise to have kernels named like this, so that you can have two or
more versions installed at the same time. For "just to make sure" purposes.
If at some point you do get enough confidence to have the kernel installed
automagically by urpmi, what do you think about the following scenario?

1) kernel rpms have the version number in their names, thus you can have
multiple kernels installed at the same time. These kernels are in the
skip.list like they are now.

2) There is a package named "updated-kernel" with version numbering like
normal rpm's. This is an empty package, that depends on the most current
version of the kernel rpm. (And there is one "updated-kernel-*" for every
kernel flavour, for instance "updated-kernel-enterprise".)

3) When you release an updated kernel, you also release an updated
"updated-kernel" package, that depends on the new kernel. urpmi then installs
the new kernel, but also leaves the old one as is. (To me, it would be okay
if the script in the rpm also installs the new kernel as default in lilo, and
leaves an entry for the old kernel. Same for the symlinks in /boot.)

I'm not sure if the current skip.list mechanism would also prevent this kind
of trick. But the general idea I'm proposing would be to automatically
install the new kernel, but also leave the old one there.

henrik
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