ELILO and Kernel Upgrade

VisionIncision · 07-10-2017, 12:30 PM

Hi all,
I just installed Slackware to my second SSD and everything went smoothly. So I did the usual process of first selecting a mirror and running

Code:

slackpkg update && slackpkg upgrade-all

After some time, I was prompted to update LILO to point to the new kernel(4.4.14). So I did that and rebooted, thinking that it would work for ELILO too.

However, when I now boot, I get no USB, no network etc and an error message:-

Code:

depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.4.14: No such file or directory

.

On BIOS systems with an MBR bootloader I have never had a problem. How does one handle kernel updates with EFI? Did I do something wrong/not do something, or is it just bad luck?

This is a freshly installed system.

VisionIncision · 07-10-2017, 12:40 PM

UPDATE:

I realised that on my EFI partition, vmlinuz was still the old kernel. I literally copied the new kernel across from /boot with the live DVD and now everything is fine.

Still, I would like to know if there is a tool to do this after updates rather than manually.

phenixia2003 · 07-10-2017, 12:40 PM

Hello,

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...4/#post5729822

--
SeB

laprjns · 07-10-2017, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VisionIncision

Still, I would like to know if there is a tool to do this after updates rather than manually.

After updating, run eliloconfig as root, not lilo.

laprjns · 07-10-2017, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VisionIncision

After some time, I was prompted to update LILO to point to the new kernel(4.4.14). So I did that and rebooted, thinking that it would work for ELILO too.

This appears to be a bug or oversight in slackpkg. The "post-functions.sh" function used by slackpkg check to see if the kernel has been updates and if so suggest that you run lilo. It does not appear to consider UEFI systems.

Here is the "lookkernel" function include in the slackpkg library post-functions

Code:

lookkernel() {
	NEWKERNELMD5=$(md5sum /boot/vmlinuz 2>/dev/null)
	if [ "$KERNELMD5" != "$NEWKERNELMD5" ]; then
		if [ -x /sbin/lilo ]; then
			echo -e "\n
Your kernel image was updated.  We highly recommend you run: lilo
Do you want slackpkg to run lilo now? (Y/n)"
			answer
			if [ "$ANSWER" != "n" ] && [ "$ANSWER" != "N" ]; then
				/sbin/lilo
			fi
		else
			echo -e "\n
Your kernel image was updated and lilo is not found on your system.
You may need to adjust your boot manager(like GRUB) to boot appropriate
kernel."
		fi
	fi
}

Darth Vader · 07-10-2017, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by laprjns

This appears to be a bug or oversight in slackpkg.

Nope. There is no such bug; it is just "the curse of the automated/advanced tools", graphical or not. In all its glory.

Long story short: the user expects from the damned application to think instead of him.

So, let's write several megabytes of code, to compute if the System booted with LILO, ELILO, SYSLINUX or GRUB, preferable with absolute precision on detection, just as the user to not have to think 5 seconds. Right?

You know what I consider to be the best way to change this code?

Leaving just a warning: "Bro, I updated your kernel right now. You may or may not need to update your bootloader as consequence of this action."

Putting in another way: WHY THE HECK a package manager/updater should mess with your bootloader? That's very UN-Slackware!

slackb0t · 07-10-2017, 10:14 PM

I think that answer is a bit extreme.. lol

But I do like this:

Quote:

"Bro, I updated your kernel right now. You may or may not need to update your bootloader as consequence of this action."

laprjns · 07-11-2017, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darth Vader

Putting in another way: WHY THE HECK a package manager/updater should mess with your bootloader? That's very UN-Slackware!

I don't disagree with this and was surprise to find out that the suggestion to update lilo came from slackpkg and not from the kernel package's slack-desc or doinst.sh