[Solved] Can I switch to kernel 2.6.30?

[adams7348]

I have installed Mint 7 (32 bit) (kernel 2.6.28) on my HP (DV6626US) laptop. Everything is working just great and I am wondering how safe is it to install the new 2.6.30 kernel?
Would there be any repercussions I should be aware of?

BTW - Great distro and many cudos to the Mint team.

-Rick

[intoDesign.ca]

I think the best thing for you to is to download VirtualBox (which is a featured application) and install a second version of Linux Mint on it. This will create a "computer within a computer" for you and you can mess around with the distro all you want without it affecting your main version. After your testing, and once you see if the system is stable and working in good order, then upgrade the kernel on your main system.

I use VirtualBox for testing out various distros and have found that it makes things very easy. If I bunk the system up, its not a problem to start over.

Good luck.

[adams7348]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[intoDesign.ca]

Let us know what your outcome is. I'm sure your efforts would help others.

[emorrp1]

The simple answer is no, it's not recommended to change the installed kernel, especially if it already works fine, since it could bring down your whole system. People have used different kernels with Linux Mint, but you have to know what you're doing, and be prepared to recover from a completely broken system.

[Lantesh]

Yes it is possible, but as emorrp1 said you have to know what you are doing, and you can certainly bork things pretty good. That being said I'm running 2.6.31 in Gloria.

[deleted]

I installed Gloria, then changed sources.list to point to Karmic.
I had to do apt-get update apt-get dist-upgrade and so far, so good.

I had the problem that ubuntu 9.0.04 had. Intermittent freezes, so I needed the new kernel.
-H

[Lantesh]

I installed Gloria, then changed sources.list to point to Karmic.
I had to do apt-get update apt-get dist-upgrade and so far, so good.

Wow I would not have done it that way, lol. You got lucky. It's best to do stuff like that in stages. I'm basically at the same point, but I didn't do it all at once. I did the kernel and headers as their own install. I upgraded Gnome carefully in multiple stages...etc...you get the idea.

[deleted]

I'm no expert, but I am a long-time debian user.
Also I successfully took Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 2 to Alpha 3 this way (Ubuntu doc'ed it).
I figured if Mint 7 was compatible with Jaunty, then it would work the same way.

-B

[Lantesh]

I figured if Mint 7 was compatible with Jaunty, then it would work the same way.

I tend to be a little more cautious as I have hosed my system doing stuff like that in the past. Of course sometimes that can fun to trying to figure out what went wrong. In any case I'm glad it worked out for you.

[deleted]

I've hosed my system so many times, I figured one more wouldn't hurt.
I have a plain vanilla HP a6720y (AMD Phenom X4, 6 gigs of ram).
I started with wanting to run with a KVM switch hooked up to my XP box and migrate the physical box it
an XP vm inside of my 64 bit Linux. Simple enough? right?

Well, new linux kernels hate old usb kvm switchs, NVidia 180 drivers didn't recognize my Nvidia video card correctly
to start with. To come to this conclusion I went through Mint 6, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Sidux, Mepis, Sabayon.

The first thing that dropped was KDE + Compiz. Apparently there are hiccups there (at least with my hardware). I wasn't
sure which was the culprit.

Then a trip to the Computer store for a new kvm switch.
So then I went through the above list again (using Mint 7). By now I was hooked on gnome;)
Mint 7 and Ubuntu Jaunty were close, but apparently the kernel was prone to freezes, which really killed me .
Sidux and Mepis seemed stable, but no real gnome option. I had a core2 quad at work where I had already taken Jaunty to Alpha 3 (but installed the Mint 7 theme). At home, I re-installed Mint 7, ran for about a week, then started getting the freezes. So I threw caution to the wind and "fixed" sources.list to point to Karmic... By this time, if I hosed the system, so what, I can install them in my sleep

-H

[Lantesh]

hinto it sounds like you went through quite a lot to get your system the way you wanted it. That was an interesting read.

[deleted]

Now if I can only get vmware player (or vmware server) to work with the 2.6.31 kernel.
Anyone know if kvm will fit the bill?
VirtualBox runs, but VMWare seems faster and is easier to forward my bluetooth dongle to.
I like to synch my Nokia phone with Outlook (using PC-Suite). Amazingly, PC-Suite is flash, but will only run in Windows.
-H

[adams7348]

Just to let everyone know, I went ahead and reinstalled mint 7 using the X_64 Gnome version,
then found and installed the 3 .deb files for kernel 2.6.30 and installed, rebooted and have been happy ever since.
Have been on the new kernel and X_64 for about 10 days now and no problems.
This is on an HP DV6626US Pavilion with 160 GB HDD, and 2 GB ram. I want to thank everyone for there help and understanding.

[deleted]

Cool... Now if only vmware catches up...

[aelfinn]

Would I have to use the .deb file from /~kernel-ppa/mainline/ or is there a repository somewhere that one could use?

And will these behave the same on KDE CE?

[Lantesh]

Would I have to use the .deb file from /~kernel-ppa/mainline/ or is there a repository somewhere that one could use?

You can use the mainline kernel, but you are better off using the Ubuntu Karmic Koala kernel, which you can get from the Karmic repositories. They are the same as the Intrepid repositories that are already in your sources.list file. Just change the name Intrepid in each line to Karmic. After you install the kernel in Synaptic change it back. Don't forget to install the headers as well.

[geekman]

Now if I can only get vmware player (or vmware server) to work with the 2.6.31 kernel.
Anyone know if kvm will fit the bill?
VirtualBox runs, but VMWare seems faster and is easier to forward my bluetooth dongle to.
I like to synch my Nokia phone with Outlook (using PC-Suite). Amazingly, PC-Suite is flash, but will only run in Windows.
-H

Hi - have you tried going over to VMware and looking at boards? I was running Mandriva for a little while to see if I liked it enough to change back after years of Ubuntu/Kubuntu. There was a patch for the .30 kernel that mandriva was using. Maybe they have developed a new patch And now I have stumbled onto my new distro of choice - the Mint World

Mark

[deleted]

Yes, been there, done that, patched...

CTRL-G gets stuck going to a linux (or xp) guest.

[darco]

Would I have to use the .deb file from /~kernel-ppa/mainline/ or is there a repository somewhere that one could use?

You can use the mainline kernel, but you are better off using the Ubuntu Karmic Koala kernel, which you can get from the Karmic repositories. They are the same as the Intrepid repositories that are already in your sources.list file. Just change the name Intrepid in each line to Karmic. After you install the kernel in Synaptic change it back. Don't forget to install the headers as well.

Wow, I am totally amazed here.....First, I installed this script( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=835573) automatically rebuilds nvdia drivers when a new kernel is installed (a little hesitant as I read up in the forum and it appears the author has vanished. I was prepared for the worse).
I was about to install the mainline .31 kernel , ( previously running the mainline 2.6.30) until I read the above quote from Lantesh. It made sense to go w/the KK kernel. After d/l and installing the appropriate headers, rebooted, it went straight to the desktop w/o a single hiccup! On top of this, VMware 6.5.3 rebuilt its modules on first login and all is fine!...and to think I set aside a whole afternoon for breakage!

darco