CentOS - Jun 2006 - RFI: Information for Centos 4 unsupported kernels

Hi,

this may sound stupid, but;
- I'd like to install unsupported x86/i386 smp kernel because I need 
some support (for eg. dual booting for r/w files for winXP) etc.
I'm now using 4.3 latest smp kernel. (I've tested that x86 still runs 
better than x86_64  like I was told in January. Thanks for the advice.)

Questions:
Is there any documentation for how to install unsupported smp kernel so 
that'll be able to do normal updates (like I've been updating until now 
without features of unsupprted kernel) ?
I've downloaded the kernel files (107), how should I install them (yes, 
I know how to install rpm files but; but for grub, for updating, for 
upgrading etc.) ?
After updating kernel few times with normal updating processes there 
lies in grub many older kernel. Is there any process to delete them or 
do I have to do it manually ?


If this is too boring to others or outside the topics of this mailing 
list, please reply straightly to me.

For the CentOs Team many thanks of superb distro (used in many of our 
servers without any problems, and we'll have them more in near future).

Regards,
Kari


-- 
Kari Salovaara
Hanko, Finland

On Tue, 2006-06-20 at 22:32 +0300, Kari Salovaara wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> this may sound stupid, but;
> - I'd like to install unsupported x86/i386 smp kernel because I need 
> some support (for eg. dual booting for r/w files for winXP) etc.
> I'm now using 4.3 latest smp kernel. (I've tested that x86 still
runs
> better than x86_64  like I was told in January. Thanks for the advice.)
> 
> Questions:
> Is there any documentation for how to install unsupported smp kernel so 
> that'll be able to do normal updates (like I've been updating until
now
> without features of unsupprted kernel) ?
> I've downloaded the kernel files (107), how should I install them (yes,
> I know how to install rpm files but; but for grub, for updating, for 
> upgrading etc.) ?
You can edit the file /etc/yum.conf.d/CentOS-Base.repo and enable the
CentOSPlus repo ... find the [centosplus] section and set:

enabled=1

also I would recommend setting this in the centosplus section:

includepkgs=kernel kernel-devel kernel-smp kernel-smp-devel kernel-hugemem
kernel-hugemem-devel kernel-largesmp kernel-largesmp-devel

and I would recommend this in the [base] and [updates] sections:

exclude=kernel kernel-devel kernel-smp kernel-smp-devel kernel-hugemem
kernel-hugemem-devel kernel-largesmp kernel-largesmp-devel

The exclude and includepkgs lines above are all on one line ... and this
will allow upgrades of kernels only from CentOSPlus in the future.

If you are getting other packages from centosplus ... include them in
the lines as well.
> After updating kernel few times with normal updating processes there 
> lies in grub many older kernel. Is there any process to delete them or 
> do I have to do it manually ?
> 
Yes, you need to remove old kernels ... as they are not removed by
upgrades.  (The old kernel may need to be booted in a problem, so yum
will install new kernels).

After rebooting on a new kernel, I remove the ones I don't want to save
by doing:

rpm -qa | grep kernel | sort

then

rpm -e kernel-xxxx kernel-devel-xxxx

(substitute the kernels you want to get rid of)

There is a yum-plugin somewhere to keep only n kernels ... I have never
used it, but it might work too.
> 
> If this is too boring to others or outside the topics of this mailing 
> list, please reply straightly to me.
> 
> For the CentOs Team many thanks of superb distro (used in many of our 
> servers without any problems, and we'll have them more in near future).
You are welcome

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes
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