Tip for Debian Kernel upgrades on Sheevaplug đź”—
If you have a Sheevaplug (an armel device) with Debian Squeeze on it, here is a small tip for kernel upgrades…
Since my first installation of Debian on this computer, I was surprised
to see that the kernel was always the one that came from the installer
(2.6.32-trunk). I just discovered that my /boot/uImage
and
/boot/uInitrd
files were the same than during the first installation,
even if aptitude
installed 2.6.32-5 kernel image package.
In fact, new initrd and kernel image files were generated during the
post-inst of the kernel image package. But, I had to remember that
Sheevaplug do not use initrd and classic kernel images. It's bootloader,
uBoot, uses a special image file format that can be generated with
mkimage. Even if
update-initramfs
is launched during the kernel package installation,
nothing is automagically done with the uBoot images. You have to use
mkimage
.
But, mkimage is nearly a low level tool: you have to learn lots of configuration options to generate the right files because uBoot can be installed on a lot of different computers. With further investigations, I found that the flash-kernel script from Martin Michlmayr do the configuration of mkimage for the user, depending on the machine where Debian is installed. All you have to do (as root) is:
flash-kernel 2.6.32-5-kirkwood
for generating the new/boot/uImage
and/boot/uInitrd
files (backups are generated too)- then
reboot
your computer !
Now, my Sheevaplug uses 2.6.32-5-kirkwood… until the next kernel update !