Question:
I have a system that died and I'm hoping to salvage it by either
replacing the motherboard or moving the disks to a new machine. It
was running the testing 2.6.18-k7 kernel. Will that work if I put it
in a machine that is not a k7? Specifically, the likely alternatives
would be ones with proper versions of 686 or amd64.
I did some searching and reviewed the kernel FAQ, Debian installation
and release notes, and /usr/share/doc/linux-image-2.6-686 (which had
almost nothing), but couldn't find an answer.
Answer:
Chances are you'll be fine either way - isn't k7 a subset of 686? I would
certainly thnk an amd64 motherboard should work fine using a k7 kernel.
The other option, though, is to boot to a rescue CD and install a new
kernel using the rescue system.
k7 will definitely work on an AMD64 chip, but since k7 is a superset
of 686, I'd doubt that it would work on a P4 (or whatever it's
called nowadays).
I seem to remember seeing a Debian k7 kernel running on a PIII...
not positive, though.
AMD64 is the name Debian uses for the 64 bit extensions to x86, and
despite the name, it applies to Intel's 64 bit chips (all Core 2 and newer,
and some older chips).
K7 will run on AMD64 (at least an actual AMD, might work with an Intel)
in 32-bit mode.
