[SOLVED] How to view the *exact* name of the currently running kernel?

Question

Perhaps this question will seem dumb, but here goes : I have two kernels installed :
[ruben@arch ~]$ yaourt -Q linux
core/linux 3.2.9-1 (base)
[ruben@arch ~]$ yaourt -Q linux-ck-kx
repo-ck/linux-ck-kx 3.2.11-1 (ck-kx)
Grub’s menu.lst is configured to boot linux-ck-kx :
# general configuration:
timeout 5
default 2
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-label/archroot ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux Fallback
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-label/archroot ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (2) Arch Linux CK-KX
title Arch Linux CK-KX
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux-ck root=/dev/disk/by-label/archroot ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-ck.img
# (3) Arch Linux CK-KX Fallback
title Arch Linux CK-KX Fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux-ck root=/dev/disk/by-label/archroot ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-ck-fallback.img
And yet, I see no mention of *-ck-kx when issuing this comand :
[ruben@arch ~]$ uname -a
Linux arch 3.2.9-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 1 09:31:13 CET 2012 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
It does not matter whether I change the default kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst : I can set it to “ 0 ” or “ 2 ” and reboot, and the output of “ uname -a ” will always be exactly the same as above ; no mention of *ck-kx even though I know it is running.
I searched the web on how to view the name of the running kernel, all results I found said to use uname, so is there another command I am missing here ? Or is it normal that both my kernels yield the same uname output ?
Just curious, because I was playing around with kexec, and when doing “ fake ” reboots, I was alternating between the normal ARCH-kernel and the ck-kx*kernel, and I wanted to be sure that it actually worked, so I checked everytime with uname, and since I saw no difference in the outputs, I assumed kexec wasn’t working like it should, so I did a “ real ” reboot, but same uname outputs… So I must be missing something…
Here are the kexec commands I used, just to be sure I am doing this properly :
[ruben@arch ~]$ sudo kexec -l --append="`cat /proc/cmdline`" --initrd=/boot/initramfs-linux-ck.img /boot/vmlinuz-linux-ck
[ruben@arch ~]$ sudo init 6
and :
[ruben@arch ~]$ sudo kexec -l --append="`cat /proc/cmdline`" --initrd=/boot/initramfs-linux.img /boot/vmlinuz-linux
[ruben@arch ~]$ sudo init 6
Thoughts ?
Last edited by Montague (2012-03-15 22:00:02)

Answer 1

litemotiv wrote:
Hmm worksforme:
$ uname -r
3.2.11-1-ck
One question for you litemotiv : do you have two kernels currently installed on your system, like I do, or did you uninstall the ARCH-kernel ? I ask because I might try this :
$ sudo pacman -Rns linux
and reboot, and see what happens…
But before I do that, might as well try to debug it ;
t1nk3r3r wrote:I would point the finger at GRUB, or something occuring near boot-time.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Boot_Debugging
So I tried the “ Heavy Debug ” option, rebooted, then issued “ dmesg > dmesg.txt ” ; here are the first few lines of that file :
[ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
[ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
[ 0.000000] Linux version 3.2.9-1-ARCH (tobias@T-POWA-LX) (gcc version 4.6.2 20120120 (prerelease) (GCC) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 1 09:31:13 CET 2012
[ 0.000000] Command line: root=/dev/disk/by-label/archroot ro
and the complete dmesg output is here. I am no expert at reading debuggin output, but from the above, it seems like the default ARCH-kernel is being booted, even though my menu.lst hasn’t changed from my previous post (exept for the debugging options) :
# general configuration:
timeout 5
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# (0) Arch Linux CK-KX
title Arch Linux CK-KX
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux-ck root=/dev/disk/by-label/archroot ro rootdelay=5 panic=10 debug ignore_loglevel
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-ck.img
# (1) Arch Linux CK-KX Fallback
title Arch Linux CK-KX Fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux-ck root=/dev/disk/by-label/archroot ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-ck-fallback.img
I want the ck-kernel to boot, what it going on here ? Any more thoughts ?