INSTALLKERNEL

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: 7 Jan 2001
Index
Return to Main Contents

NAME

installkernel - install a new kernel image

SYNOPSYS

installkernel version zImage System.map [directory]

DESCRIPTION

installkernel installs a new kernel image onto the system from the Linux source tree. It is called by the Linux kernel makefiles when make install is invoked there. The new kernel is installed into {directory}/vmlinuz-{version}, a link is made from {directory}/vmlinuz to the new kernel, and the previously installed kernel is available as {directory}/vmlinuz.old. If you use LILO, /etc/lilo.conf should contain entries for the images {directory}/vmlinuz and {directory}/vmlinuz.old. ({version} is the new kernel's version.) installkernel calls mkboot -i to make the system bootable after the kernel is installed.

BUGS

installkernel resides in /sbin only because the Linux kernel makefiles call it from there. It should really be in /usr/sbin. It isn't needed to boot a system, and it calls mkboot, which depends on the /usr partition being mounted.