"Downgraded" to kernel-image-2.4.18-k7 . . .and it's not "applied" after reboot

[Hero Zzyzzx]

Folks,

Linux user since '97, debian for about a year. I manage a number of Debian boxes on the web and recently got one for my own projects here- so far I'm liking it: Debian all to myself on a nice pipe!

Anyway:

I'd prefer to use the kernel-image-2.4.18-k7 package because I've had a good experience on all my athlon boxes that run it. I installed the package and rebooted the box, I'm unsure how to select this as the default kernel to boot.

How are these debian boxes booted? I'm used to lilo, myself.

I was assuming that whatever was symlinked to /vmlinuz would be it, but that's not the case.

Help?

[BlackNet]

Hello,

Someone correct me if i'm wrong but they are rolled with grub. You may want to check the grub manual at http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_mono/grub.html for the config.

Ed

[Hero Zzyzzx]

Argh. I borked it: I read the docs, configured menu.lst what I thought was correctly (couldn't find a "test" option to grub in the docs or googling. . . is there one?) and rebooted the box.

No good. I'll never touch grub again: I should've stuck with lilo, which I've used a lot. Maybe I'm a tweaker, but I don't like my boxes running with any known vulnerabilities.

Anyway:

The only thing that needs to happen to get this box working is it needs to have it's "menu.lst" in /boot/grub/ rolled back to the default installed on the powerservers, and I said as much in the ticket.

I've submitted a ticket (#61232). . . From folks experience, is this something serverbeach can fix easily?

[Hero Zzyzzx]

Fortunately I'm still "moving in," so it'll be nice to have this stuff ironed out before I'm really using this in production.

[BlackNet]

Hello,

If your more versed with lilo then you may want to switch. Just keep good notes on what you did to resolve the problem so you won't run into it again.

Ed

[Hero Zzyzzx]

Hindsight is 20/20. . . Funny- isn't lilo the debian default bootloader?

[BlackNet]

Hello,

Yes lilo is the default for woody, however this is not a classic install.

Ed

[knightfoo]

Yes, LILO is the default Debian bootloader. We chose to use GRUB instead of LILO because it is much more useful when it comes to troubleshooting boot problems. If you botch a kernel install with LILO, you're screwed if none of your images in lilo.conf work properly. GRUB gives our datacenter staff the ability to troubleshoot and fix more kernel related problems. This is particularly important because these servers don't have CD-ROM drives in them, so you can't just pop in a rescue CD and fix the problem.

GRUB is much more powerful than LILO and saves a lot of time in the long run. It is definitely worth learning and is actually simpler than LILO .. no need to reinstall everytime you upgrade your kernel. Once you play around with the GRUB command-line, you'll never want to see a LILO prompt again. :)

-knightfoo

[Hero Zzyzzx]

So I've heard, and it's definitely been on my plate for a while. . .

No matter what, I still feel like an idiot. :( I'm actually pretty darn good with linux generally and coming up to speed quickly with managing Debian servers the "Debian" way. . .

I manage a bunch of web/database/mail servers as a full-time job. . . As I said, stupidity knows no bounds!

[BlackNet]

Hello,

If we are going to talk about stupidity then we need to set some ground rules.

http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/stupidity/

Ed