TL;DR:
As of this writing, the lxpanel Updater applet somehow only updates the kernel modules without changing the system release. I want to know why, and point out that apt
resolves issues.
Backstory:
Today, I installed the following updates using the Updater applet in the lxpanel
menubar on RPi OS:
apt list --installed | grep 202208
linux-libc-dev/stable,now 1:1.20220811-1 arm64 [installed,automatic]
raspberrypi-bootloader/stable,now 1:1.20220811-1 arm64 [installed]
raspberrypi-kernel/stable,now 1:1.20220811-1 arm64 [installed]
After rebooting following the prompt, I noticed the following symptoms:
My second monitor is stuck on the rainbow startup screen. Replugging it and checking
xrandr
show that it's not detected.None of the daemons started by kernel modules were running.
After Ctrl+Alt+F1
ing into tty1, I see at the top:
[ 3.003542] systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
[FAILED] Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
with the rest of the normal login screen below that, indicating that I successfully booted using Kernel 5.15.32-v8+.
Resolution:
I realized the recently updated kernel modules were version 5.15.56, while the system was still at the previous version I mentioned earlier. Based on this question, I reinstalled the kernel updates using apt-get
(rather than the lxpanel updater) and rebooted, resolving the problems. This RPi forum thread demonstrates the same procedure with apt
, which is more current.
Takeaway
As mentioned earlier, the lxpanel Updater applet somehow only updates the kernel modules without changing the system release.
Why is this? Should I be using apt
instead of the Updater applet for kernel updates?