Kernel patch on SuSE

[Jeff_Traigle]

Is there a way to have SuSE not blow away the original kernel when installing a patch? Red Hat was pretty simple since it installed each kernel in a separate directory and grub would get configured so you could boot from either the new or the old kernel.

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

Are you sure that you use "rpm -i" and not "rpm -U" command for new kernel install?

AFAIK, "rpm -i kernel-new-version.rpm" will leave old kernel in each rpm-based distro.

[Jeff_Traigle]

I'm not at a system now... at the recommendation of our Linux admin, I used yast on the SuSE box I was testing on. I always used up2date on Red Hat so rarely did anything with rpm directly. I believe the selection in yast was > and not i so it did an update instead of an install of the new kernel. I'll have to double check when I get into the office.

[Jeff_Traigle]

Interesting... yast apparently will only let you do an upgrade, not an install, on the kernel. That's the preferred method listed in the patch instructions also. They list the alternative instructions using rpm and specify to use -U option to upgrade also. Guess they figure the new kernel is rock solid and no one should need to boot off the previous one. Such optimists. :)

[Andrea Rossi]

rpm -i (not -U) will install new kernel without disinstall the previous. The new one will be the default, but you can select the previous at boot time (lilo or grub).
you cannot do the same with kernel-source rpm.