Linux Mint Forums

I find that in Synaptic it shows Linux Generic packs 2.6.28.14 avialble as upgradable. It is not coming in Mint update.
Sould I upgrade?
Will it add one more set of versions in Grub?
Thanks

I upgraded my laptop as soon as it showed up a week or so ago. I haven't had any problems.

Keep your current version as a fallback and give it a shot. You can always remove it if there's problems.....

In general I've never had any issues upgrading a kernel when staying with, for lack of a better term, the same range. In other words it's still .28. If you were to go to 2.6.30 or 2.6.31 then you have to deal with other things, but as long as you are only upgrading to another version of 2.6.28 then that's pretty safe.

Lantesh wrote:In general I've never had any issues upgrading a kernel when staying with, for lack of a better term, the same range. In other words it's still .28. If you were to go to 2.6.30 or 2.6.31 then you have to deal with other things, but as long as you are only upgrading to another version of 2.6.28 then that's pretty safe.

Funny you should mention that. Reading this thread lit a fire under my rear, since I realized I haven't tried compiling a kernel since I started using Mint back in June.

I have 2.6.30 compiling in the background right now...

will updateing the kernal kill my wine install?

leo5111 wrote:will updateing the kernal kill my wine install?

try it and find out. you can always use the other one in the system if it does....

optimize me wrote:Funny you should mention that. Reading this thread lit a fire under my rear, since I realized I haven't tried compiling a kernel since I started using Mint back in June.

I have 2.6.30 compiling in the background right now...

I've actually never compiled a kernel. The times I've gone with a later kernel, such as right now I'm using the 2.6.31 kernel, I've always gotten it from the next version of Ubuntu. The kernel I'm running now is out of the Karmic Koala repositories.

Compiling a kernel is not too difficult, with all the correct files in place, and even easier on Debian based systems
http://www.howtoforge.com/howto_linux_k ... ile_debian
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/compiling ... el-26.html

One way of looking at the kernel is to check the options it has enabled, via
cat /boot/config-2.6.28-13-generic, or gedit to check what has been configured for the running kernel, you could then check what those options mean in a regular way by searching for compiling a kernel + Linux or Debian on the Internet
--that will give you a good idea of what is or is not being supported

Despite that and the fact that a customized kernel exactly matches your hardware and does not include any extras that you might not need, eg IDE if you only have SATA hard drives or vice-versa or only one language if you don't use others, or prefer only your own /native language..
--almost all Linuxes these days use a generic kernel and simply add to it between versions with module loading, or kernel extensions
http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml

A customized kernel should have a speed advantage and be smaller than any generic kernel, but the convenience of just running on more hardware may tip the balance to using only generic kernels for most distributions and users
--Gentoo uses a customized kernel:CPU specific (it doesn't take very long to recompile the kernel with additions/deletions), and compiles everything from source, if you want it that way; as well as others like Linux from Scratch..

I may try that at some point. Basically I've always taken the lazy route, as the Ubuntu devs have already compiled it for me. Thanks for the links though. I'm sure they will come in handy at some point.

optimize me wrote:I upgraded my laptop as soon as it showed up a week or so ago. I haven't had any problems.

Keep your current version as a fallback and give it a shot. You can always remove it if there's problems.....

Thanks
How do I remove it ?
via Synaptic ???/
or Terminal?