Linux kernel security update
02 Nov 2009
guess we should brace for a new onslaught of broken nVidia and other
device drivers installed “the easy way” ??
–
palladium
Have a lot of fun…
Can’t beat the “hard way”… 
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.37-0.1-default
up 14:01, 2 users, load average: 0.13, 0.13, 0.17
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18
Believe it or not, my video survived this update. (I have an NVidia chipset.) I was pleasantly surprised. 
On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:36:02 +0000, smpoole7 wrote:
> Believe it or not, my video survived this update. (I have an NVidia
> chipset.) I was pleasantly surprised.
Worked fine here as well.
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
Why are you surprised the NVidia drivers from the repos “survived” the update?
That’s exactly the way it should be.
Kernel Module Packages - openSUSE
During 11.1 there was one update which needed new kmp-packages (during 11.0 there was even none).
On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:26:01 +0000, Akoellh wrote:
> Why are you surprised the NVidia drivers from the repos “survived” the
> update?
I’m not. I was commenting that it worked fine here. I can’t remember
having a problem with it, contrary to palladium’s comment.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
> I’m not. I was commenting that it worked fine here. I can’t remember
> having a problem with it, contrary to palladium’s comment.
i guess you missed all the crying (you were not here everyday)…
try to search for threads titled with words like:
after kernel update problem black screen help crisis hurry login
move, mix and match, you will find some of the threads…there are a
bunch…just with the two kernel upgrades in 11.1,
here are a few: http://forums.opensuse.org/search.php?searchid=1312269
–
palladium
Have a lot of fun…
On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:18:23 +0000, palladium wrote:
>> I’m not. I was commenting that it worked fine here. I can’t remember
>> having a problem with it, contrary to palladium’s comment.
>
> i guess you missed all the crying (you were not here everyday)…
>
> try to search for threads titled with words like:
>
> after kernel update problem black screen help crisis hurry login
>
> move, mix and match, you will find some of the threads…there are a
> bunch…just with the two kernel upgrades in 11.1,
>
> here are a few: http://forums.opensuse.org/search.php?searchid=1312269
Oh, I saw reports, but I also have been doing forums for long enough
(almost 20 years now) to know that in general, the only ones who post
about an issue are the ones who actually are having the issue. It’s rare
for someone to come in and say “everything’s working great, just wanted
to let you know”.
It’s easy to lose sight of that perspective when all you are seeing are
the problem reports and nothing of the successes.
But also my experience with recent updates has been good, which is what
my initial reply was in fact about - my own experiences. That’s not to
say I haven’t had bad experiences with nvidia’s drivers (or ATIs, I’ve
used both a fair bit), just that the last few kernel updates I’ve gotten
haven’t caused problems with video.
(The last kernel update did mess up my Wacom driver, but I expected that
since I’m using an experimental driver with support for the Intuos4 OLED
panels - something that’s not in any of the stock driver packages).
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
seems you couldn’t tell that my “guess we should brace for a new
onslaught of broken nVidia and other device drivers installed “the
easy way” ??” was not talking about my (or your) personal experience
with problems following kernel upgrades *…
but, rather i was thinking about the inexperienced user base who
elected to do things “the easy way” with the One Clicks available via
http://software.opensuse.org/search
in my opinion: the One Click was a great idea, but in implementation
it became a way to lay multiple land mines in the path leading to
Linux Nirvana… by both 1) insuring a mass of n00bs with broken
systems after each kernel update, and 2) through littering their
enabled repo list with multiple unnecessary and dependency problem
producing sources that keep those users popping in daily with strange
and unexplained problems…
so often is that the problem that Carl very often begins his GREAT
help by asking for a list of the repos–and, his first (and often
only) step is to prune the list back to reasonable…and then repair
with zipper magic…
see: http://forums.opensuse.org/search.php?searchid=1312678
–
palladium
Have a lot of fun…
*
I confess, I’m mostly too lazy to test if graphics work after a new kernel update. Even if one reboots, finds graphics work, maybe (albeit highly unlikely) there will be some obscure side effect that one encounters later. Hence I simply rebuild the graphic driver as a matter of course.
Once one is familiar with a simple rebuild of the graphic driver (for a new kernel) its very fast to simply reboot to run level 3, and rebuild the graphic driver (for both ATI and nVidia graphics) and voila … all should be wonderful.
I note audio “just worked” after the 2.6.27.37 update on 11.1, which is not a surprise. Still, I also note there are new alsa rpms packaged for the 2.6.27.37 kernel in case one had audio problems.
I had to rebuild Virtual Box after the 2.6.27.37 update. No problem as Virtual Box tells one EXACTLY what to do. But that simple fix has stumped MANY a new user and we could have some users new to Virtual Box report a problem.
I note my webcam driver just worked after the kernel update, although I did see a difference in how an ffmpeg based application worked with the web cam what should have been a full screen but was not (using an ATI driver) after the 2.6.27.37 update (and also after a proprietary ATI driver update). So something puzzling (but not worth the time fixing) was introduced there.
I have not yet updated my wife’s PC to the 2.6.27.37 kernel (it uses an Atheros wireless) so I have not yet checked to see if it has a problem, but I seriously doubt it will, as her PC now uses the ath5k driver, as opposed to using the madwifi.
As ath5k is part of mainline, it will be updated automatically.
BTW:
Instead of recompiling NVidia-“hard way” installed or VirtualBox kernel modules, just copying the module(s) from the “old” to the “new” module directory works if there was no ABI change (which is the same rule that applies to wether one has to build new kmp-packages).
On Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:12:00 +0000, palladium wrote:
> but, rather i was thinking about the inexperienced user base who elected
> to do things “the easy way” with the One Clicks available via
> http://software.opensuse.org/search
Fair enough.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator