RPM needs to go on a diet.

[Jeff Johnson]

Michael Favia wrote:

> Jeff Johnson wrote:
>
>> Kyrre Ness Sjobak wrote:
>>
>>> tor, 17.02.2005 kl. 04.47 skrev Jeff Johnson:
>>>  
>>>
>>>> Kenneth Porter wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>> --On Wednesday, February 16, 2005 1:27 PM +0200 Panu Matilainen 
>>>>> <pmatilai at welho.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>    
>>>>>
>>>>>> The kernel package runs hardlink on /lib/modules/*/build/ in 
>>>>>> %post to
>>>>>> save space on FC2 and FC3, that's what's taking so long when 
>>>>>> installing
>>>>>> and removing kernels.
>>>>>>       
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What does hardlink do? There appears to be no man page or other 
>>>>> documentation for it in kernel-utils.
>>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hardlinks's identical files to save space.
>>>>   
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Why are hardlinks chosen over symlinks here?
>>>
>>
>> Look there's a really simple answer to hardlinks and rpm and more:
>>
>> Choose a kernel, use that.
>>
>> Chose another kernel, use that, get rid of previous.
>>
>> With one (or very few) kernels installed, hardlink and rpm 
>> performance is a non-issue.
>
>
> At a cursory glance, arbitrarily limiting the ability to rollback 
> kernel upgrades (to a small or larger extent) seems a poor fix. 
> Discovering kernel flaws or bugs doenst necessarily happen the first 
> time you use the new kernel and may lay hidden for some time. In my 
> company dictating acceptable use (outside of normal operating bounds, 
> and without very good reason) is seen as a red herring of poor design 
> (no implications intended). I suppose you could just go find and 
> download the older kernels to test but i honestly dont know where to 
> find archived versions of kernel updates (that is: not base and not 
> most recent update). Perhaps i am the only one who doesnt know where 
> to find such things or maybe information on that subject will reduce 
> the need to keep the kernels installed. I dont know the issues 
> involved but i hesitate when i hear answers like the above suggestion 
> to problems like these. 


All very well known problems.

As long as you can boot off *some* kernel, any desired kernel package 
can be installed.

So "choose" carefully. And if you miss, well, always keep some way to 
boot, and copy
available kernel packages out of /var/cache/yum somewhere so the yum 
clean does not nuke.

Or have every possible bleeping kernel already pre-installed and never 
remove anything.
Unfortunately, that exercises known deficiencies with both rpm and 
hardlinks, and is
slower than optimal, so take valium and be patient.

Entirely up to you, it's your machine.

73 de Jeff