On Monday 16 January 2006 16:12, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> but in my view the default should be to keep the current,
working kernel
> as the default (as I believe it used to be).
This makes for a very poor default for systems managed by novice fedora
users. Novice users may not realize that they need to reconfigure their
grub to take advantage of a security update kernel. Its very important that
the default configuration is one that makes booting into security
kernel updates as automatic as possible. For people with enough
experience using Fedora to competently manage multiple remote systems,
the configuration file /etc/sysconfig/kernel can be used to disable
this default.
I still think it is a bad idea to install the new kernel automatically.
The worst thing that can happen for a newbie
is that he turns on his laptop and it doesn't work.
There have been several occasions where that has happened to me
with Fedora kernel updates - to mention three:
an xorg update which did not work on my Sony Picturebook,
a kernel update which did not work on an AMD-64 machine,
a SCSI update which did not work on a SCSI-only machine.
I regard kernel and distribution as orthogonal,
and would rather keep them separate.
I don't find it very onerous to go through the Grub menu,
and choose the kernel (or OS) I want.
The most important issue for a newbie (and for me)
is that whatever OS I am using
should work with the least possible trouble.
Everything else - including security - can come later.
--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland