Datasheet

“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 234 — #260

The kernel that is installed in the /boot/ directory is conﬁgured for a wide

range of hardware. Normally, there is no need to compile a custom kernel,

unless you want to test experimental features and drivers.

Several Makefiles are provided with the kernel to automate the pro-

cess. Select the hardware settings and other kernel features. As you need

to know your computer system pretty well to make the right selections,

modifying an existing and working conﬁguration ﬁle is recommended for

your ﬁrst attempt.

9.1 Kernel Update

To install an ofﬁcial SUSE update kernel, download the update RPM from

the SUSE FTP server or a mirror like ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/

suse/. To determine the version of your current kernel, look at the version

string with cat /proc/version. Alternatively, check to which package

the kernel (/boot/vmlinuz) belongs with rpm -qf /boot/vmlinuz.

Before installing this package, make a backup copy of the original kernel

and the associated initrd. As root, enter the following two commands:

cp /boot/vmlinuz /boot/vmlinuz.old

cp /boot/initrd /boot/initrd.old

Then install the new kernel with the command rpm -Uvh

<packagename>. Replace packagename with the name of the kernel

RPM to install.

Since SUSE LINUX 7.3, reiserfs is the standard ﬁle system. It requires the

use of an initial RAM disk. Therefore, use the command mk_initrd to

write the new initial RAM disk. In current SUSE LINUX versions, this is

done automatically when installing the new kernel.

To be able to boot the old kernel, conﬁgure the boot loader accordingly (for

more information, refer to Chapter 8 on page 203). Finally, reboot to load

the new kernel.

To reinstall the original kernel from the SUSE LINUX CDs, the procedure

is almost the same, except you copy the kernel RPM from the directory

boot/ on CD 1 or the DVD. Now, install as described above. If you receive

an error message saying that a newer kernel rpm is already installed, add

the option --force to the above rpm command.

234 9.1. Kernel Update