Hi,

i recently installed Ubuntu Linux (which i must say is very good) which comes with kernel 2.6.10-5-386. Being a fool who likes to fiddle, i thought i would install the kernel which is optimised for my processor (2.6.10-6-k7). it installed fine, but loads of my apps seg faulted like any libGL stuff, open office, xmms. To attempt to remedy the problem, i put the old kernel back on, but it was still acting up. any clues as to what it was i broke? I was guessing that libc would need recompiling or something??

eventually i reinstalled the whole OS but i would like to know what went wrong out of curiousity so i could fix it in future.

As far as i know, installing a new kernel shouldn't have any such impact on a system. is this right? or have i missed something somewhere?

also, does anyone reckon that installing an optimised kernel would make much difference performance wise?

thanks for your time

Dan

those two kernels are going to be virtually identical really. things like GL support on some cards are going to be an issue though, as installation of a third party module, such as those provided during NVidia's own driver install are installed per kernel, in /lib/modules/2.6.x.y-z/etc... and so the module will only be found on a per kernel basis. as for the other programs, well you're probably down to differences in the supported features. not quite sure what to suggest might be the difference. maybe they are compiled for an optimized cpu, e.g. mmx2, 3dnowext and these flags haven't been enabled in the second kernel. try running the application within gdb (gdb /opt/OpenOffice/oowriter) then when it crashes, pull off a backtrace (enter "bt") and see where it died.

as a note though you should NEVER remove an old kernel unless you're totally confident in the new one. it's totally possible to run a single system with dozens of different kernels from most versions of the linux kernel, going back years.

yeah well that's what i thought i mean in the old days when i had redhat, i installed new kernels no problem.

but anyway, its all working now, i'm just one of those people who can't leave stuff alone. i'll probably break something else soon

ah well

cheers for the reply

Dan