2.4. Applying Updates

There are two ways of applying updates from an Update Media. From a changeable media (see Section 1.1.1) or from the installation source (see Section 1.1.2). Applying updates from a changeable media might require user interaction. Thats the case when:

1. The Update Media is on the same media type as the installation kernel. For example a media change will be required if you boot the installation from a floppy and the Update Medium is also a floppy.

2. You have multiple Update Media on different changeable media. For example a Driver Update on a floppy and a YaST Update on a CD. (>= SL 9.0)

If thats the case you can press the 'driver update' key at the boot screen or use the parameter 'driverupdate=1'. linuxrc will apply any driver updates it finds on floppy disk and then ask the user for further driver updates (>= SL 9.0). If you start in manual mode, use the 'Kernel modules' --> 'Add Driver Update' menu entry to load driver updates.

SLES10 for i386 and x86-64 offers to load driver updates from CD-ROM via BIOS functions which is helpful if you cannot access the CD drive from linux in any way. For this, pack the complete driver update data (with number prefix to avoid problems when applying several updates - see Section 2.1.1) into a (optionally gzipped) cpio archive (use 'cpio -H newc') and put the archive on a CD. At the boot prompt add, e.g., 'driverupdate=/update1,/update2' to load updates '/update1' and '/update2'. If '/update2' is on a different CD than '/update1', add a '+' in front of it ('driverupdate=/update1,+/update2') indicating you want a prompt for changing the CD before '/update2'.