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The Linux kernel is just a program
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this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Different distros vary a bit here, and it will differ if you're on a system using efi.
Sometimes /boot isn't mounted by default (it's not needed unless you're updating a kernel). You may be seeing a symlink or placeholder there.
If you're using efi there will probably be /boot/EFI or something where your kernel is stored.
The reason there’s no version in the filename is simply that Arch just doesn't keep old kernels around.
The
vmlinuz-linuxjust gets replaced whenever you update thelinuxpackage and the old one is deleted immediately.That's... Insanity. Keeping at least one old kernel is amazingly useful if you run into issues with an update.
I agree that it’s be useful, and I think you can just install e.g. the LTS kernel next to the regular one.
But even without , the arch way isn't insane either: when something kernel-related breaks, boot with a live system on USB and fix it.
Case in point: I dimensioned the EFI partition too small, so at some point, me using the zen kernel (which comes with a backup kernel image) messed things up and I couldn't boot a half-written kernel.
then I
/and/bootpartitions manually into/mnt/root/and/mnt/root/boot/devand/procinto/mnt/root/{dev,proc}/mnt/root(resulting in an environment using/devand/procfrom the live system and the rest from my system),It's not crazy, it doesn't take long, you just need to know how the system works. Upside is that nothing ever breaks permanently, everything is fixable (except hardware failure)
That is not a replacement for "arrow-key down during boot to select an older kernel".
I have a server with a RAID card and the kernel at some point introduced a bug with the driver that prevented that server from booting. So I select the older kernel at boot, get the system up and running, mark that kernel as the default until the bug is fixed.
I know how the system works very well thankyouverymuch. But that's an insane option when having multiple older kernels is so easy to do and common.
As said: installing the LTS kernel also works, I think.
And you wouldn't use Arch for servers, you want something stable (as in “rarely changing”) there.
I wouldn't use arch for anything.
I really like rolling release. So much better to deal with updates one-by-one than in a giant batch every half year or so.
Neat