Fedora 17 - Only one kernel

[Ian Malone]

On 10 July 2012 10:15, Mateusz Marzantowicz <mmarzantowicz at osdf.com.pl> wrote:
> On 10.07.2012 09:47, Ian Malone wrote:
>> On 10 July 2012 08:33, Mateusz Marzantowicz <mmarzantowicz at osdf.com.pl> wrote:
>>> How can I reduce the number of installed kernels to only one on my
>>> Fedora 17 systems? I'm asking about automated approach without the need
>>> of manual package removal.
>>>
>>> I haven't compiled new kernels myself for a very long time so I don't
>>> think I'll need more then one kernel installed.
>>>
>>> Now, I'm using  package-cleanup --oldkernel but it's still cleaning up
>>> the mess that I want to avoid.
>>>
>> You do want two kernels installed at least in case an update fails to
>> boot. The installonly_limit parameter in /etc/yum.conf manages it, if
>> you changed it to 1 then all older kernels would be removed by a yum
>> update. Actually, I think possibly the running kernel will not be
>> removed, so maybe it's not possible to get down to 1 that way. Maybe
>> create a service for startup which does the cleanup? That way the old
>> kernel wouldn't be removed until you successfully booted into the new
>> one (but that still wouldn't catch things like broken video drivers or
>> needing to add kernel parameters to work around a problem).
>>
>
> Thanks, a  lot. But now one thing bothers me even more. Is it possible
> that broken kernel which won't boot or cause any other serious problems
> is released in Fedora 16 or 17? I know that in Rawhide something might
> go wrong, but in 16, 17?
>

In general kernels will boot, they wouldn't get past the
updates-testing and karma procedures otherwise. However it's possible
that a change is introduced which will fail on your hardware. For
example my laptop is currently on the F17 release kernel because of
this bug <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=834318>. The
install_only limit keeps that number of kernels installed, so you can
roll back if that does happen.

Additionally if you use a binary module for any reason (cue posts
saying you shouldn't) then any given kernel update might break it.

-- 
imalone
http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk