[CentOS] "yum update" did not update kernel on one box

Wed May 7 18:13:13 UTC 2008
Lanny Marcus <lannyma at gmail.com>

On Wed, 2008-05-07 at 18:30 +0200, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
> -rw------- 1 root root    816 May  7 05:08 grub.conf
> 
> got changed 5:08 today. Are you sure you booted after that? What does uname 
> -a show now?
Kai: Yes, I rebooted, very early this morning. I just tried it again. My
wife had been using MS Windows XP. I rebooted the box into CentOS 5:

[lanny at compaq1300 ~]$ uname -a
Linux compaq1300.HOMELAN 2.6.18-8.el5 #1 SMP Thu Mar 15 19:57:35 EDT
2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
[lanny at compaq1300 ~]$

> > default=0
> > timeout=5
> > splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
> > hiddenmenu
> > title CentOS (2.6.18-53.1.14.el5)
> >         root (hd0,2)
> >         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.14.el5 ro
> > root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
> >         initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.14.el5.img
> 
> The machine *is* booting vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.14.el5 and you should also be 
> able to see all three available boot options. You should be seeing something 
> like "booting CentOS in x seconds". You can interrupt this by pressing a key. 
> You should then see all three options and the first one with CentOS (2.6.18-
> 53.1.14.el5) highlighted. If you continue with that I don't see a way it 
> could not be booting into vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.14.el5.

What you describe above is how it works on my box and on my daughters
box. They are working correctly. However, on my wife's box (compaq1300)
there is a glitch, that is causing this not to work properly. On
compaq1300, I do *not* have the three boot options (original kernel,
latest kernel and Windows XP). I have two (2) options, if I interrupt
grub:  (a) the original kernel (b) other, which is Windows XP

As CentOS 5 boots, it shows, a number of times, the original CentOS 5
kernel, that is on the Install DVD I got last year. At *no* time, does
it show the latest kernel booting.

> What makes me wonder a bit is this: (hd0,2). If you set this system up new 
> with CentOS 5 this would hardly be the case if you accepted default 
> partitioning options. Is there another system, maybe Windows, on the disk or 
> some external boot manager or so?

Yes. The 3 Desktop boxes are dual boot. CentOS 5 and Windoze XP.
Grub is installed on all 3 boxes.  Of the 3 boxes, 2 of them are working
properly.   :-) Have a nice evening and thank you! Lanny