Hey gang,

Sorry this seems to be a thing with me, but, it *is* important afterall, and I sure do want to be able to keep up with kernel updates as I was so easily able to do with all the Slackware versions I've used up to and including 14.2.

What I mean by 'easily able to do' is, that using 'lilo', it was as simple as simple gets. Install the updated kernel stuff that I got in my e-mail list from the Slackware team, and then did 'lilo'. Rebooted, and done. Something even the village idiot - me - could do.

Now that We're headed into V15 and I have a new machine I've built, this MOBO doesn't let me use lilo when I install 'current', so I end up with 'elilo'.

The only thing about that is, I have absolutely zero idea what to do if/when a kernel update comes around using 'elilo'.

I've tried reading up on the 'net about it, in Slackware docs, etc, but as usual it's all left me even more confused what to do after doing an

It just seems as I'm getting older and the memory is getting worse quickly (no thanks to the help of contracting encephalitis when I was 27 years old also, meh), if it isn't kept simpleton-ly for folk like me, I'm going to lose out, and being disabled, my computer is the *ONLY* thing that has kept me from going ape-s*^t crazy these past 21 years and blowing my brains out.

I absolutely refuse to go to a different distro, like one of the 'buntus, because I've used other distro's - SuSE and Mandrake the first five or six years +/- after wiping my drives of anything M$ in the year 2000. I do not want to use anything with systemd either. I just really like the way Slackware is so easy when it comes to installing software/programs and keeping it up-to-date compared to 'rpm' distros.

So, I want more than anything to stick with Slackware, but just need help made for simpletons on how to upgrade kernel stuff when my system is installed with 'elilo'.

(Sorry for such a long post for such a simple request)

The configuration interface for elilo is exactly the same as for lilo; it was deliberately designed that way. You have an elilo.conf file, which looks just like lilo.conf (only it's on the EFI system partition, not in /etc) and you add your new kernel and initrd to that in the usual way. That's all. You don't need to run /sbin/lilo because there's no longer any such program. elilo can read vfat filesystems so it can read its configuration file directly.

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Since you didn't mention initrd, sounds like you're using the huge kernel. As Hazel mentioned, the process differs slightly between lilo & elilo. Since you're updating the kernel and not installing the new kernel, think of replacing the 1 step when you run lilo with 3 steps with elilo

1 - after upgrading the kernel, copy the new huge kernel from /boot to /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware.
2 - edit /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/elilo.conf with the new kernel name.

Reboot, done!

3 - You should plan to revisit /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware regularly and delete the old huge kernel(s) otherwise your EFI partition may run out of space depending on the size of the partition.

You can make it more complicated with generic kernels (initrd) or multiple kernels (different naming convention) but that doesn't sound like your intention.

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I use a very simple way, I don't have to touch "elilo.conf" on the /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware partition.

This is the part in elilo.conf:
After a kernel upgrade (5.13.8 at the time of writing) I first create a new "initrd-5.13.8.gz" for that kernel, than copy the new kernel and that initrd
to the efi boot partition: from within the /boot directory I run
thats it

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Just likely a minor consideration but are you certain your new mobo doesn't have "Legacy Boot" or "CSM" on a toggle somewhere?

My newest machine is a Z490, less than one year old, and thankfully still has an CSM option. That's rather important to me since I have about 14TB storage with several operating systems and some of them are years old but I still want to be able to run them without converting the partition GPT. I can just let it default boot via EFI even with CSM enabled, or I can disable it for a less cluttered set of boot options. All I have to do to boot any of the old MBR systems is just hit the keystroke combo that allows me to select "Boot Order" and the next boot goes right back to default.

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Much like the OP I was having some difficulties wrapping my mind around kernel management after moving to an EFI system and using elilo. The above mentioned steps are exactly what I've been sticking to the past several years.

1 members found this post helpful.