Is it possible to add a menu entry at the bootloader for a new kernel?
 

hello,

I have fedora installed with kernel Linux 5.10.7-200.fc33.x86_64, which was working.
My hardware is Toshiba Qosmio laptop, with multi-boot.
This laptop has a NVIDIA video card 340. I had installed the offical driver from NVIDIA but at Fedora 32, this videocard gave me at an update issue's.

I found more or less a solution with https://www.if-not-true-then-false.c...nvidia-install, which is a patch for the kernel I believe. I have done some Fedora updates successfully. (In the meantime I have learned that this is maybe not the right way, patching everytime the kernel, or...)

Yesterday, I was updating Linux with "dnf update", and the packages are downloaded at /var/cache/... In this cache directory Fedora 34 was downloaded

There it goes wrong, my var disk is running out of space (4 Gb) and I could not patch the kernel anymore with NVIDIA driver. I think than I have made some mistakes by doing:

• dnf clean packages
• sudo pkcon refresh force -c -1

At least I had some space now again and I could patch the kernel but I had also done "dnf update" earlier as mentioned. So kernel version: kernel-5.12.8-300.fc34.x86_64 was downloaded and would be installed after the next reboot, which was failing: "Oeps seems something went wrong" (with dissapointed smiley).

Status now:

• The boatloader shows only kernel version: Linux 5.10.7-200.fc33.x86_64, so that I can only select this kernel (and Windows 10 (multi boot))
• I can still boot in text mode, runlevel 3. When the boatloader is shown, I press 'e' and add 3 after ... quiet"
• I have uninstalled Nvidia driver and activated nouveau driver again
• With rpm -qa kernel there two kernels: Linux 5.10.7-200.fc33.x86_64 and kernel-5.12.8-300.fc34.x86_64
• uname -mrs returns: Linux 5.10.7-200.fc33.x86_64

My Question:

• Can I repair this?
• Can I add an menu entry to the bootloader for kernel version "kernel-5.12.8-300.fc34.x86_64" and getting that one as the running kernel
• If so, I'm googling, but how exactly, so that I made not another mistake that runlevel 3 is also not working anymore!

I hope that someone can help me further

Can you reinstall the 5.12.8 kernel?

I just try it but no:
" Last metadata expiration check: 1:13:53 ago on Thu 10 jun 2021 06:18:11 PM CEST
Installed package kernel kernel-5.12.8-300.fc34.x86_64 (from updates) not available.
Error: No packages marked for reinstall."

I'm looking now at /boot and I don't see there an fc34 kernel file. Could that have something todo with it?

now I have executed; 'dnf install kernel --best' and a menu entry is added: Fedora (5.12.9-200.fc33.x86_64) 34 (Workstation edition).

But if I start it graphically it fails with:
" "smiley"
Oh no! Something has gone wrong.
A problem has occured and the system can't recover. Please contact a system administrator".

System administrator thats me, but I have to less knowledge what I can do now... unfortunately than just googling, or reïnstall linux again. But I should like to know - learn -, what is the problem and can I solve it.

This should be solvable. What version of Fedora does /etc/os-release show? "Oh no! Something has gone wrong" is a message that Gnome and/or GDM are not properly supported by X in its currently installed state. Check for the existence of /var/log/Xorg.0.log. If it exists, show it to us:If it doesn't, look for Xorg.0.log in ~/.local/share/xorg/ instead, and if found, fpaste it instead. Whichever you share should give us a clue what you need to do next.

Hello mrMazda,

Thanks for helping.
here I do have the os-release:
while uname -r is returning: 5.12.9-200.fc33.x86_64, which is strange or not, if you compare this with os-release, or not?

rpm -qa kernel is returning:
5.10.7-200.fc33.x86_64 --> this was the version which was last working and I was trying from here to update to version F34. This kernel version is shown in the grub
5.12.8-300.fc34.x86_64 --> This is the version to which I would like to update, but it has been going wrong. . This kernel version is NOT added to grub/bootloader!??
5.12.9-200.fc33.x86_64 --> and after try & error I found by googlen the command "dnf update --best", hoping that something would be done with FC34, but this kernel has been installed as well. This kernel version is shown in the grub

And yesterday evening I have installed the NVIDIA driver again from , hoping that it maybe repair one of the versions, so that at least I can boot again. But this give also some problems see my screenshots.

I have the NVIDIA-installer.log, but is to big to attach and zip is not allowed I discovered.

I hope that we can find how to solve this, at least to learn something from it. Otherwise I have to install Fedora 34 from scratch without /home partition. Although I don't know how to do this on this moment but I have found on internet that this should be possible installing Linux without /home. But I hope that we can fix it.

Did you recently attempt to upgrade from 33 to 34 without following the instructions on https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US...ystem-upgrade/ ?

Why do you think a reinstall must be without a separate /home?

I wrote fpaste /var/log/Xorg.0.log, not attach /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Big files like Xorg.0.log, journal and dmesg should be uploaded to a pastebin, not attached. Pastebinning allows the attachments to be opened directly in a web browser instead of forcing to be downloaded then opened. At this point Xorg.0.log doesn't mean much because of the apparent mixture of v33 and v34 you seem to have. The only "problems" I see there are warnings that suggest possible display firmware defects, not software errors.

I asked what version os-release reported, not for the content of the file. Please try to follow instructions.

uname -r reports the running kernel. rpm -qa kernel reports the kernels installed. It seems like you must have repo and/or rpm database corruption. These things need to be fixed, if possible, before attempting to install another kernel or NVidia's drivers. What doandreport?

Normally for update I do only "dnf update". I have done several times without issue's. Later I did also this update and than patch the kernel with Nvidia. But the steps mentioned there that is not what I have done.

returns 2067

returns:
(Btw. Stupid, but I didn't realize that fpaste was a command. 'Normally' a file will be attached, so didn't think furhter. Sorry.
I executed the command i 'says' Uploading (38.9KiB)... https://paste.centos.org/view/7b491779. Ah I see now the advantage Nice! I tried also the nvidia-installer.log but is to big.)

IIRC, dnf update was deprecated several releases back, replaced by dnf upgrade. I see only updateinfo and upgrade in the man page's commands list. I think dnf may run upgrade when you type update, but best to stick to what's know to be correct.

You have a mixed system. I'm not sure how easy it might be to fix, so let's see output from the following first:

I have paste it here.

The list is about fc34 and uname -r reports as running kernel fc33...?

That's almost as many f34 packages as f33 packages. I can only imagine you tried to upgrade from 33 to 34 and the process was interrupted near the end of the process. What I would try is these commands:Maybe first I would try following the instructions for system upgrades I provided a link to in post #7 for a 33 to 34 upgrade.