• Registered: 2011-09-29
  • Posts: 15

Topic: A note to inform that i486 kernel is installed in 32-bit CB

Just noticed that my laptop fan was going constantly. So I wrote a script to turn on the conservative governor for all 4 cores, and I got a message kicked back - the OS said "Huh?" LOL

So I checked and sure enough, uname -r returned a 486 kernel. These kernels cannot see more than 1 cpu and are also ram-limited. Firing up synaptic showed it the only kernel installed.

Unless you actually have a 486, I highly recommend installing the appropriate i686 kernel smile

Thought I would pass this nasty surprise on wink

  • Registered: 2011-09-29
  • Posts: 15

Re: A note to inform that i486 kernel is installed in 32-bit CB

And on reboot? Ahhh, the sweet sound of silence big_smile

Now, for my frothy adoring of the new release to continue..

  • From: Equarico
  • Registered: 2010-07-15
  • Posts: 714

Re: A note to inform that i486 kernel is installed in 32-bit CB

ch3rry80m8 wrote:

Unless you actually have a 486, I highly recommend installing the appropriate i686 kernel smile

How would one go about doing this?

Proceed with confidence!
http://eldervlacoste.deviantart.com/
  • dubois
  • The Old Codger
  • Offline
  • From: Austin, Texas
  • Registered: 2010-09-03
  • Posts: 2,193

Re: A note to inform that i486 kernel is installed in 32-bit CB

I always thought that was a holdover from the original Statler 10 live build.  hmm

Last edited by dubois (2011-11-30 18:09:02)

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.
Cary Grant
  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2010-07-02
  • Posts: 1,272

Re: A note to inform that i486 kernel is installed in 32-bit CB

If you want to change kernels, just do an 

apt-cache search linux-image

for a list all of the available kernels. Then whichever one of those kernels you decide to use, install the package that apt-cache returned along with it's headers (just substitute the word headers for the word linux). So for example, to install the current backports kernel along with it's headers you would issue

sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.38-bpo.2-686 linux-headers-2.6.38-bpo.2-686

or if you wanted to revert to the stable squeeze 686 kernel you could do

sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6-686 linux-headers-2.6-686

DKMS will automatically compile and install the apropriate kernel modules for all of the kernels you have installed. You will of course, have to restart your system to boot the new kernel. After rebooting into the kernel you just installed, you can uninstall the one that came with your system or just leave it in case you want a backup. Kernels don't use up that much space, so there's really no point in removing it unless you're running off a USB stick or an ancient machine with 16 GiB or less of hard drive space.

Edit: Also, if you want to change the order that the items appear in the GRUB menu, you can just cut and paste the menu entries in /boot/grub/grub.cfg but just make sure you keep the individual menu entries intact and don't screw anything up, or you might have to reinstall grub! A menu entry will look something like this:

menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 3.0.0-8.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64' --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
    insmod gzio
    insmod part_gpt
    insmod ext2
    set root='(hd0,gpt1)'
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 69e90afc-8e64-4f2e-8ca9-28b69bc56b4f
    echo    'Loading Linux 3.0.0-8.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64 ...'
    linux    /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-8.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64 root=UUID=69e90afc-8e64-4f2e-8ca9-28b69bc56b4f ro  quiet
    echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
    initrd    /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-8.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64
}

So move them up and down, but just make sure you keep them all in one piece.

Last edited by mynis01 (2011-11-30 18:46:08)