How to have the latest kernel in openSUSE: Difference between revisions
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It is good practice, when you enable the ''kernel-head'' repo and thus recieve the latest and greatest kernel, to keep some previous kernel(s) at hand to use as a fallback scenario. These kernels will appear in your grub menu so you will be able to choose them when booting up your machine. | It is good practice, when you enable the ''kernel-head'' repo and thus recieve the latest and greatest kernel, to keep some previous kernel(s) at hand to use as a fallback scenario. These kernels will appear in your grub menu so you will be able to choose them when booting up your machine. | ||
Fortunately, '''zypper'' supports this with a few configuration options. It is possible for instance to instruct zypper to keep the stock kernel, the latest kernel, and the latest but one. That is cool, right? | |||
The magic is in the file <pre> hallo </pre> | |||
Revision as of 09:22, 9 May 2012
It is possible to have the latest kernel in openSUSE. However, there are a few thing you must consider.
stock kernels
OpenSUSE is installed (from DVD or wherever from) with a kernel called the 'stock' kernel. This kernel remains the same for the whole time that that specific openSUSE version is supported, and is only updated with security issues and occasional bug fixes. This is called backporting. These updated stock-kernels appear in the update channel just as normal updates, so you should install them, just as other updates.
This is a list of the latest openSUSE versions and their stock kernels:
openSUSE version: stock-kernel 12.1 3.1.9 upgraded to 3.1.10 for security/bugfixes 11.4 2.6.37
kernel versions
openSUSE has the option to run other 'flavours' of the kernel. These include:
- kernel-default -> The standard kernel for both uniprocessor and multiprocessor systems.
- kernel-desktop -> This kernel is optimized for the desktop. It is configured for lower latency and has many of the features that aren't usually used on desktop machines disabled.
- kernel-pae -> this is a 32-bit only special kernel with support for 64GB memory. 64 bit kernels support this by default
- kernel-vanilla -> The standard kernel - without any SUSE patches
- kernel-xen -> The Linux kernel for Xen paravirtualization. This kernel can be used both as the domain0 ("xen0") and as an unprivileged ("xenU") kernel.
Usually, for a desktop/laptop system, you run the default or the desktop flavour.
keeping older kernel versions as fallback
It is good practice, when you enable the kernel-head repo and thus recieve the latest and greatest kernel, to keep some previous kernel(s) at hand to use as a fallback scenario. These kernels will appear in your grub menu so you will be able to choose them when booting up your machine.
Fortunately, 'zypper supports this with a few configuration options. It is possible for instance to instruct zypper to keep the stock kernel, the latest kernel, and the latest but one. That is cool, right?
The magic is in the file
hallo