Re: Switching Kernels without Rebooting?

H. Peter Anvin
2001-07-11T23:37:08Z

Followup to: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0107112310590.962-100000@fogarty.jakma.org>
By author: Paul Jakma <paul@clubi.ie>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Helge Hafting wrote:
>
> > That seems completely out of question. The structures a 2.4.7
> > kernel understands might be insufficient to express the setup
> > a future 2.6.9 kernel is using to do its stuff better.
>
> however, it might be handy if say you needed to upgrade a stable
> kernel due to a bug fix or security update.
>
> no?
>

No. You have no guarantee that the state or state mangler won't
propagate the bug into the new kernel, even if it has been fixed.
Since many, if not most, bug fixes or security upgrades are related to
state getting mucked up, this is a very serious thing.

-hpa
--
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."