[sclug] Thinkpads R61s, kernels and crashes

[Simon Champion]

Hia.

> Namely - 2.6.24-21 on Ubuntu 8.04 has killed a lot of machines.. 

My normal upgrade process is to wait at least a month after an Ubuntu release 
before I do my upgrade. Gives them a chance to iron out the glitches that 
always come with a new version.

8.04 is old enough now that it's well established and ought to be pretty much 
rock solid. In fact, 8.10 is due for release this week, so 8.04 certainly 
isn't on the bleeding edge any more.

It's possible that you meant to say 8.10, in which case, I for one am going to 
wait it out for a bit longer, and if you're nervous about the upgrade, I'd 
recommend waiting a bit too. But if you meant 8.04, I'd say it should be 
fine.

That said, it is sensible to take precautions -- you should always take a 
backup of everything important before you start (and make sure it's 
recoverable), and if possible, have an installable copy of the old OS to hand 
just in case you do have problems with the new one.

> and NOW there are security updates with this kernel.

There will always be exploitable bugs with every kernel and every OS. Linux 
isn't immune, and when they get found and fixed, that's a security update.

As long as you keep your machine up-to-date with all the latest patches, 
you'll be fine.


Hope that helps.


Cheers,




   Simon C.


On Tuesday 28 October 2008, Alex Cockell wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> As you know, I'm relatively new to the OS... and it's been rather
> unnerving recently while monitoring the Ubuntu forums and call-tracking
> services...
>
> Namely - 2.6.24-21 on Ubuntu 8.04 has killed a lot of machines.. and NOW
> there are security updates with this kernel.
>
> My main question - is it safe to accept on my R61?  Will I be able to
> accept the update, reboot and continue?  Or is it liable to kill my
> machine at the mo?  There doesn't appear to be any kind of official
> announcement yet... and some of the bugs suggest that the sequence of
> package application is wrong - and someone has to muck about in the guts
> of the box to get it working again.
>
> I'm not exactly sure that production releases are supposed to do that...
>
> Waiting for reassurance...
>
> Alex