Kernel upgrade issue

[ONEEYEMAN]

Hi,
I recently upgraded the system and so made the jernel upgrade from 5.10.52 to 6.6.21.
I also tried to switch to use the Network Manager.

After that my WiFi interface failed to load.

I am now booted in the old kernel and have a Internet access,

I have an Intel WiFi card and no wired interface.

During the kernel upgrade I just chose what was selected as the default for a new config (which probably was not a good idea).

I don't have an old sources for 5.x kernel anymore. But I think I should still have an old config file.

Is it possible to track down what has changed in the new kernel configuration that prevented me to even rollback Network Manager on 6.6 one?

Or maybe I should abandon the idea and just drop the old kernel config into the new source tree and reconfigure?

What would be the easiest and less intrusive solution?

Thank you.

[bstaletic]

I personally keep my kernel config around and just let portage figure out the difference between the kernel versions.

Could there be stuff in new kernels I might want to enable/disable were I to go through the new config options one by one?
Very possibly yes, but my strategy has never failed me so far.
That said, I update more often, so the incremental changes are much smaller than in your case.

You could also figure out what went wrong with your wifi card. Do you know which kernel options you actually need for it to work?
lspci -k is often helpful. lsmod as well. dmesg can tell you about lloaded firmware.
When you collect the data from a working kernel, you can boot the new one and check what you're missing. Or grep the new config from the old kernel.

[figueroa]

5.10.52 to 6.6.21 is a really big jump, and your 5.10.52 had long been left behind in the 5.10.~ series. BTW, 6.6.38 is the latest, stable, longterm version.

There may be something missing from your kernel upgrade process. Did you copy the old .config into the new source directory? Did you run make oldconfig (or makeolddefconfig)?

There is a lot to be commended in upgrading the kernel in smaller steps. First, bring your 5.10.~ up-to date in that series. 5.10.221 the latest, stable version in that series. Use, test, take some time. Then 5.10 to 5.15, test, enjoy, then 5.15 to 6.1, etc.

Finally, if you upgrade the kernel more often it will be a lot easier, and you will become better at doing it. I brought a couple of computers up to 6.6.38 this morning. Each one took me about five minutes of my time. (Actually, the second one took a bit longer because I made a typo on the commandline.) What made it easier is that they were already running 6.6.21.
_________________
Andy Figueroa
hp pavilion hpe h8-1260t/2AB5; spinning rust x3
i7-2600 @ 3.40GHz; 16 gb; Radeon HD 7570
amd64/23.0/split-usr/desktop (stable), OpenRC, -systemd -pulseaudio -uefi

[sublogic]

To expand on figueroa's suggestion: see https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8777836.html#8777836.

[pietinger]

[figueroa]

My personal cheat sheet.