RE: Switching Kernels without Rebooting?

Laramie Leavitt
2001-07-11T10:03:56Z

>
> This is not a problem at all, because UNIX does not guarantee that
> a process will get at least one CPU slice every X seconds.
> ( read : UNIX is not a real time system )
>
> soft-suspend "freezes" processes for several hours anyway ...
>
> Note that there is a patch for hot replacing a kernel, which is equivalent
> to rebooting, but much faster :
> Two Kernel Monte (Linux loading Linux on x86)
> http://www.scyld.com/products/beowulf/software/monte.html
>

So if the Two Kernel Monte patch was combined with the
system suspend/resume in swap patch then you add some
transitions so that the code path does this:

1- Suspend->Monte
2- Monte->Load new Kernel
3- Load->Resume.

If it was just for very similar kernels, i.e. most
-pre and -ac kernels it would probably work fine.
If not, then you could just do the Monte route.

Laramie