# Can't boot kernel after upgrade



## Deleted member 9563 (Nov 23, 2010)

First of all, I took an existing installation and reinstalled the / and left the separate /home partition. This was from an amd64 8.1_Release CD. It appeared to work as I could log in. I then used "sysinstall" to do an upgrade via FTP. Upon rebooting I get:


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can't boot kernel
```

Any suggestions?


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## Deleted member 9563 (Nov 23, 2010)

I've been searching the net but still haven't found any solution. However, I did fool around a little and discovered that I could type some commands. Typing "boot GENERIC" landed me into a minimal configuration. From there (and I don't know what I'm doing) I renamed the /boot/kernel.pre (iirc) directory to /boot/kernel. I assume that I now have the previous (original) kernel. Now it boots into what looks just like it did before. Is that what one is supposed to do?


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## SirDice (Nov 23, 2010)

There shouldn't be a /boot/kernel.pre/, you may have a /boot/kernel.old/ though. This is the 'old' kernel from before your last installkernel.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Nov 23, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> There shouldn't be a /boot/kernel.pre/, you may have a /boot/kernel.old/ though. This is the 'old' kernel from before your last installkernel.



I guess I should have written it down. At any rate there was only one kernel there and I copied it to the kernel directory. There was (is) also a kernel.new directory, but it is empty. At any rate, I seem to be back to where I started except that perhaps the ports are now up to date.

I'm sorry to be bringing up such a basic thing, but in this case I can find nothing relevant (to my way of thinking) in the manual. It talks about security, but not a plain upgrade. What I was hoping (and failed miserably) was to get an upgrade that would be compatible with my new(ish) Intel board. I have a feeling that FreeBSD does not support it yet. I will make another thread about that.


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## SirDice (Nov 23, 2010)

OJ said:
			
		

> I'm sorry to be bringing up such a basic thing, but in this case I can find nothing relevant (to my way of thinking) in the manual. It talks about security, but not a plain upgrade.


Huh? Chapter 24 Updating and Upgrading FreeBSD




> What I was hoping (and failed miserably) was to get an upgrade that would be compatible with my new(ish) Intel board. I have a feeling that FreeBSD does not support it yet. I will make another thread about that.


If it works now it'll work after the upgrade.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Nov 23, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Huh? Chapter 24 Updating and Upgrading FreeBSD



Thanks, that's what I was looking at. It starts right away with:


> Applying security patches is an important part of maintaining computer software, especially the operating system.


I guess I should read it carefully, but I've been working on this for so many hours now that I'm about to give up. I admit that I was hoping for a quick fix.



> If it works now it'll work after the upgrade.



Thanks for the assurance.  That is why I am hoping to change to FreeBSD. I want stability and not daily updates and a constantly broken system such as I have had with Linux for the past 10 years.


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## SirDice (Nov 23, 2010)

Then you should track a -RELEASE. That will only receive security updates, nothing else. -STABLE will be constantly updated.

Also note that ports have nothing to do with this. They're completely separate.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Nov 23, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Then you should track a -RELEASE. That will only receive security updates, nothing else. -STABLE will be constantly updated.


Will do.



> Also note that ports have nothing to do with this. They're completely separate.



I guess I'm a little confused on these matters. I had thought that updating the ports would possibly bring in more compatibility with newer hardware for the ones that I subsequently compiled. It looks like with FreeBSD there is more separation between the kernel and applications than there is with other OSs.

Anyway (as mentioned in my other thread) my real problem here is likely lack of compatibility between Xorg and my video chip. All was fine with everything else before I broke it.


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## Beastie (Nov 24, 2010)

OJ said:
			
		

> I had thought that updating the ports would possibly bring in more compatibility with newer hardware


The hardware interfaces with the system through device drivers. Except from Xorg graphic drivers and custom drivers, all drivers are part of FreeBSD's kernel.



			
				OJ said:
			
		

> It looks like with FreeBSD there is more separation between the kernel and applications than there is with other OSs.


FreeBSD is like most OSs (e.g. Windows). It has a kernel and userspace applications in one package. Third-party applications are developed independently, are not indispensable for the proper operation of the system and can be installed later.
It's GNU/Linux that is the exception here.


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