Kernel 2.6.24 -- gee that was fun...not!

[Paul Lemmons]

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Kernel 2.6.24 -- gee that was fun...not!
From: Robert Locke <lists at ralii.com>
To: For users of Fedora <fedora-list at redhat.com>
Date: 03/14/2008 12:11 PM

> On Fri, 2008-03-14 at 11:34 -0700, Paul Lemmons wrote:
>> I have been using Fedora since core 2 and I have never had any problems 
>> with a kernel update. Yesterday that changed the new 2.6.24 kernel. I 
>> booted the system and got to see it panic and halt. It appears that it 
>> was doing something with networking, but that is not for sure. I gather 
>> that by looking at what it barfed on my screen and picking out the big 
>> pieces :)
>>
>> I have uploaded a smolt profile of my machine. If you have the same 
>> difficulty you may want to look and see if you see any overlap.
>>
>> http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_bbdcaa05-e7bd-4ad7-83ca-f822b5b0fb7f
>>
>> Recovery was a pain...
>>
>> 1) Remove all traces of new 2.6.24 kernel
>> - I could remove the new kernel, devel fairly easily
>> - removing the kernel-headers took a lot of friends with it
>>    - tracked the dependences to reinstall later
>>
>> 2)  Tried to install the 2.6.23 headers and devel
>> - none of the repos had the "old" kernel files
>>    - after much searching I found: 
>> http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=35322
>>       - got headers and devel packages
>>       - rpm -ihv the devel and header rpms
>>
>> 3) Nvidia drivers messed up on 2.6.23
>>    - Tried to install livna Nvidia drivers
>>       - always tried to drag in the 2.6.24 kernel
>>       - could not find a way around it
>>
>> 4) Reinstalled development environment lost in step 1
>>    - yum install gcc gcc-c++ gcc-java rpmdevtools
>>    - will go back and get the others later
>>
>> 5) Nvidia the hard way
>>    - yum erase kmod-nvidia*
>>    - download the driver:
>>       - wget 
>> http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/169.12/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run
>>    - Turn off Xserver
>>       - telinit 3
>>    - Install the driver
>>       - sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run
>>    -  reboot
>>
>> 6) sigh with relief as I see my twin-view screens come up correctly
>> 7) share experience here
>> 8) will exclude kernel from yum update until 2.6.25 comes out.
>>    - I see on this list that others have had success with it.
> 
> 
> Hey Paul,
> 
> Just out of curiosity, why did you have to reinstall the 2.6.23 kernel?
> I can imagine there being a kmod problem perhaps, but yum normally keeps
> a couple of kernels in place....
> 
> Also, not sure that things will get better for you with 2.6.25.  The
> issue is more that upstream kernel development does not appear to have
> the "two branches" anymore, so "new features" and such are getting
> incorporated with each release.  I think the "issue" for some is a low
> number after the 2.6.24, namely the current .3 that has yet to squash
> some regressions that have caused some folks pain.  The hope being that
> it might improve with later rev's of the 24 series....
> 
> --Rob
> 

I had the 2.6.23 kernel and was able to boot from it but the 
kernel-headers had been replaced with the 2.6.24 version. In cleaning up 
that I had also cleaned up the kernel-devel packages (probably a 
mistake). Either way, though, to get the headers back in sync with the 
kernel I had to go out to the koji site.

I am a little gun-shy now about updating to a newer kernel. I will 
probably wait until F9 comes out and will test first with a Live CD. 
That is not so far away that I can't wait and the new kernels don't 
often really give me anything new that I actually notice. I usually 
update simply to keep my machine current and, like this time, report on 
the rare problem.
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