Updating kernel and consequences

On a Fedora FC5 system, it is very easy to update the software using yum update.

This also updates the kernel, which is good, but given the number of "non-standard" items installed on my system (VMWare Server, NVidia Display, PVR-150 TV Tuner/MPEG Encoder), it requires a lot of fixing up after every yum update. [So I have automatic update disabled, do the update only when time permits to do all the fixups.]

After a kernel update:

  • Check to see that the matching kmod-nvidia-* module also made it in, otherwise the display won't work well. In some cases, the kmod-nvidia module site is down, so may have to build module by hand.
  • yum install ivtv ivtv-kmdl-`uname -r`
    to get the driver for the PVR-150 TV-Tuner/MPEG Encoder card.
    This should also install the firmware, if it does not, visit the ivtvdriver pages to do the firmware install manually.
  • If mplayer has problems with audio, check alsa-lib. I have the atrpms site listed for updates, and that is considered risky, packages may not match the other sites. In Sep 2006, started to get this error when using mplayer:
    alsa-lib: pcm_direct.c:1632:(snd_pcm_direct_parse_open_conf) Unknown field ipc_sem
    The fix is to remove alsa-lib:
    yum erase alsa-lib.i386
    (which may uninstall packages like firstboot, and control-center,m which I don't use )
    and then re-install it using this:
    yum --disablerepo=atrpms install alsa-lib
    (and if needed, reinstall firstboot, control-center, etc).
  • Rerun vmware-config.pl