failed yum update, new kernel won't boot

[Fred Smith]

Hi all!

something went  awry during a yum update a little whuile ago. It's
my netbook, still on F19 (yes, I know it's now officially EOL, it
should get an upgrade Real Soon Now, I'm just trying to make-do
for a little while).

So, I did a "yum update", and it found a bazillion packages to update,
including kernel, to (I think it was) 3.14.27-100, and somewhere during
the update process everything hung hard. mouse moved, but that was about
all. hidden panels wouldn't un-hide, clicking on any window or icon
didn't do anaything, I could not grab and drag or resize any windows,
right-click desktop did nothing, CTRL-ALT-F2 (or F3 or...) did nothing. no
disk activity that showed on the little blue LED.

So after a while I tried CTRL-ALT-BKSP which is enabled, and nothing
happened. CTRL-ALT-DEL didn't do anything either. so I eventually
gave up and used the Big Red Switch. So it rebooted and hung with
some sort of kernel panic dump on the screen before I got the passphrase
prompt for the encrypted HD. sigh. frobbed the Big Red Switch again,
chose previous kernel and it comes right up.

I did yum-complete-transaction and it appeared to finish up the
failed bits.

but the new kernel still panics on boot.

I tried "yum reinstall" for all the kernel bits of the latest (non-
working) kernel, and it said "not available" for all but (I think
it was) headers. What does "not available" mean here? I mean, it had
just downloaded for installation a little while before, they've
disappeared in the meantime?

Sigh. I'm open to suggestions here, thanks in advance.

Fred
-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
               Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths;
                     Guide me in your truth and teach me,
                         for you are God my Savior,
                    And my hope is in you all day long.
-------------------------- Psalm 25:4-5 (NIV) --------------------------------