FC3: kernel-i586 vs. i686

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Erich Noll wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
> thanks for the reponses.  I think I'm going to bite the bullet
> and
>
> rpm -Uvh --force kernel-2.6.10-1.737_FC3.i686.rpm

As "ne..." pointed out, I should have suggested

	rpm -ivh --replacepkgs --replacefiles kernel-2.6.10-1.737_FC3.i686.rpm

although in this case, rpm -ivh --force should be OK (but is dangerous if
used indiscriminantly), but rpm -Uvh is a mistake.

If you have an old kernel, you could also boot to it, "rpm -e" the kernel
you don't want, and "rpm -i" the kernel you do want.

>
> Worst case is I have to rescue or rebuild this machine.
>
> One last question, though:  someone mentioned that I might have
> avoided this predicament had I used yum or up2date instead of rpm.
> Do yum and/or up2date perform the same/similar function as
> rpm?  I might have used yum or up2date for this but I guess I
> thought they performed a different function, i.e. go out to an update
> site on the network and pull down more current rpm packages than
> are currently installed on the machine.  I came from RHL8 to FC3 and
> have never done any work with other than rpm for loading software.

RPM just installs RPM packages and keeps the local RPM database up to
date.

Yum finds RPMs in repositories (new ones or updated ones) and pulls
dependencies as well, when necessary.  It also is architecture-aware, so
if you have an i686 package installed it will add or update the new i686
package, preventing you from making the mistake you made this time.  Yum
uses RPM functions to install the packages it finds.

>
> TIA
>
> Erich
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "ne..." <guhvies at gmail.com>
> Sent: Jan 12, 2005 8:34 AM
> To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list at redhat.com>
> Subject: Re: FC3: kernel-i586 vs. i686
>
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:42:32 -0500 (EST), Matthew Saltzman
> <mjs at ces.clemson.edu> wrote:
> > On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Dave Jones wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Jan 11, 2005 at 08:48:39PM -0600, Erich Noll wrote:
> > >
> > >  > rpm -Uv  kernel-2.6.10-1.737_FC3.i686.rpm
> > >
> > > Don't do this.  Always rpm -i kernel rpm's, as using -U can
> > > really break things badly if something goes wrong.
> >
> > This problem is a bit different than usual, as the packages have the same
> > release/version numbers.
> No it is not. rpm  -ivh --replacepkgs  --replacefiles are the options
> to be used.
>
> > But this doesn't really help him out of his jam...
> >
> > This is exactly the moment (and almost the only moment) to use "rpm
> > --force".  Boot to an older kernel (you do have an older kernel installed,
> > don't you?), then "rpm -Uvh --force kernel-2.6.10-1.737_FC3.i686.rpm".
> > Then reboot to the updated kernel.
> How is the person going to keep the old working kernel when you tell
> them to use rpm -Uvh --force???
> rpm -Uvh wipes out every other kernel on the system and leaves you
> with a kernel that you do not know works. And as for 'force',  this is
> very dangerous practice if you do not know what is going on. Please
> refrain from advising anyone to use this. I have detailed much better
> options to use in this case.
>
> N.Emile...
>

-- 
		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs