Hi Everybody,

Just a question about updating to a newer kernel. I am curretnly running 10.2 with the 2.4.31 kernel. It is solid as a rock and I am having only minor little problems. However, most of the posts I see here are from people who use a newer kernel. I tried to install a new kernel a few weeks ago and messed it up pretty badly, but was able to recover and keep my 2.4 setup intact.

My question is, since I am finding the 2.4 kernel reliable and solid, will there be any significant benefit to installing and using a newer kernel? I'll add that I mainly use this machine at home and for learning to become an advance linux user. No mission critical stuff.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Bob

not really, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.........

Try getting a stock prebuilt 2.6 kernel and see if that works. If it does, there's no point in compiling your own unless there's something special you have in mind which is not normally compiled in.

Dbus, hal features, better work with udev.

Yeah, but udev breaks every few months. If things work fine, there's no real reason to switch before Pat makes 2.6 the default.

If you are using your box to become an "advanced Linux user" you should definately compile a custom kernel. This is a great way to being understanding how your box functions.

Hi,

Bob, you should be able to have multiple kernel configurations without a problem. Several examples in the references in my sig.

I for one have multiple configurations on most of my machines. I always setup multiples for each. The reason being for maintenance, special system operations or experimentation. These type of boot options can keep you out of trouble. Heck, you should always keep a known working configuration as a boot option. Then add the stanza to your lilo/grub to boot a configuration of choice.

If you do have problems you should be able to boot from a known live-cd and recover using it. Experiment with this, as you will need to learn how. This method is a means out of a hole!

As for the benefit of a new kernel. This will be dictated by your needs on the system. You should learn to read the changelogs to see if upgrading is in your favor or not.

HThiSelf! See my sig.

HTH!

As 320mb said: If you don't have a problem, don't solve it.

Personally I use 2.6.13 from the Slackware 10.2 CD's, because it supports some of my hardware better (certain SCSI and USB devices). If your hardware is well supported by the default Slackware kernel, I'd suggest you stick with it, as this is the easiest to maintain. When there's a kernel patch, just use slackpkg to apply it. With other kernels you have to do some of the steps manually, with a slightly larger risk to break something (usually not a real *big* risk, though).

gargamel

myself, i use the 2.6.14.6 kernel offered by slackware.com. it's stable and works great. as for the 2.4.31 or even 32 kernel...like the others said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. the only reason i upped it to a 2.6 was to simply see if i could do it. i've never compiled my own kernel, and it doesn't look like i'll be doing that anytime soon, but then, there's no need for me to do that, cuz slackware keeps the kernels pretty current, and you can always be pretty sure that the kernels that ship with slackware will work for you, otherwise PV wouldn't include them.

Thank you for all your responses. I suppose I could have guessed what the concensus would be: don't upgrade if your satisfied. I do want to leanr to compile my own kernel because, as it has been said already, I am going t have to learn sooner or later. But, as I mentioned in my post, I screwed it up once and almost endangered my entire Slack installation so I guess I am a little gunshy.

Bob

It should never hurt if you keep your old tried & tested kernel around, and keep it included in your LILO configuration. If the new kernel does not boot, you can always fire up the older kernel. And if all goes wrong, you can still boot Slack with the bootable installation CD, by entering the following line on the "Boot:" prompt:

bare.i root=/dev/hda5 noinitrd ro

(Replace bare.i with the kernel that supports your hardware, and hda5 with the name of the root partition of the Slack installation.)