Tim: >> You mightn't notice that a kernel has *some* problems for a while, if >> you don't use all the features all the time. Later on, when you have >> some problem, it can be handy to have more than one alternative to test >> with. >> >> Occasionally there'll be a very quick release of a kernel update shortly >> after another kernel update. That could end up deleting the only good >> kernel. David Boles: > I have never had, touch wood, a kernel problem like that. I have no > unusual hardware. All of it is supported natively by Linux. I don't > need special drivers, non OSS software, or third party anything. > Fedora, and all of the other distributions that I have tried, installs > with no problems and just works on first reboot. > > I don't own a laptop. I don't want to own a laptop. But if I did I > would buy one with natively supported hardware such as my desktop. One > that would not require that I search for non OSS drivers and such. It's not just laptops that *may* have an issue, desktops use a variety of glue logic hardware that will need kernel drivers, and all the other BIOS foibles. It'd be quite easy to find that they've dropped support for something, something that you use. Or they've broken support for something. For my money, I'd always keep at least three so that surprises are a simple reboot to recover from, rather than half an hour of recovery games when I really wanted to be doing something else. And I've certainly had machines that have been left running for ages, had a few kernels installed during that time, but never actually been rebooted and tried them out. -- [tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr 2.6.23.1-10.fc7 i686 i386 Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5. Today, it's FC7. Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
