Re: [gentoo-user] how do you keep up with system administration?

[Benno Schulenberg <benno.schulenberg@gmail.com>]

Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> On 5/29/07, Denis <denis.che@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I usually dread kernel updates because then I have to go
> > through kernel menuconfig all over again, and for me, that
> > takes some time.  I guess one can reuse the old .config file,
> > but I understand it's not always a safe thing to do.
>
> You can use the old .config safely if you "make oldconfig" before
> anything else.  It will prompt you for replies to any new things,
> and quietly ditch anything it doesn't recognize.

And this can ditch needed options when they get renamed or replaced, 
like happened with the netfilter stuff on the upgrade to 2.6.17, 
and with some IDE/ATA stuff on the upgrade to 2.6.20.  Just running 
'make oldconfig' on a 2.6.x to 2.6.y upgrade will not always give 
you a fully working kernel.

> > Is it reasonably ok to wait for every "major" 2.6.x release to
> > update, or is it necessary to update on every minor 2.6.x.y
> > release also?

If your kernel does everything you need and you are content with its 
performance, there's no need to upgrade to a new 2.6.y.  Just put a 
~sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.y into /etc/portage/package.mask and 
forget about it.  But the -rn upgrades for your current version you 
normally _do want to install because they fix serious bugs.  Often 
those bugs affect only specific hardware, but there's no harm in 
blindly upgrading: these little rev bumps _are safe.

Benno
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