I use the generic-smp kernel, so I create an initrd. After every kernel upgrade I change three links in /boot (config, System.map, and vmlinuz) to point to the generic kernel rather than the huge kernel. My question: is this advisable or not required? Thanks

In Lilo if you use "image=/boot/vmlinuz" then it is important the vmlinuz exists in /boot and is either the desired kernel or is a link to the desired kernel.

Your system will boot fine without making changes to the System.map or config links but I believe some debugging avenues will not be available to you. I always change all three links each time I make a kernel name change.

You can test this for yourself by having both the old and new kernel in Lilo (different "label=" values) and experiment. That way if the new kernel fails you can boot from the old kernel. Have the older kernel in lilo use the name of the file ("image=vmlinuz-generic-3.2.29") instead of the link to the file ("image=vmlinuz").

Install generic after huge (or don't install huge) and you won't have to fix the links.

Thank you Tracy Tiger and ruario. That answers my question completely.

Simple re-execute doinst.sh script of kernel-generic packages stored at /var/log/scripts/fill-package-name from / (root) directory as superuser (root) to relink /boot/{vmlinuz,System.map,config} and rerun lilo, for ex.:

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I think the best way to avoid this issue is to ignore the symlinks and use the full kernel name in your lilo.conf (or elilo.conf as the case may be).

You can't go wrong that way.

... and edit /etc/lilo.conf on every kernel upgrade.
But with symlinks and huge+generic kernels installed:Additionally, unique named rescue huge kernel copy stays in /etc/lilo.conf and /boot so upgradepkg doesn't remove it.

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You could shorten one of those lines!
P.S. Neat trick with re-executing the doinst.sh script.