updating kernel

[Derick Centeno]

HI:
I'm not sure which list this should go on but I've sent it to both.  The
problem is this after doing yum update, my kernel apparently was also
updated.  Weird things started happening that I blamed on CUPS, HP and
so on - specifically I kept having to reset where the printer was
located in cups and in printer_config. so that I could recover the
printer's normal ability to do something as simple as printing a CUPS
test page.  However, I discover although I can print a test page I
cannot print from within vim even by using the hardcopy command.  Very,
very bad...I use that command all the time documenting my code.  That
worked fine before yum updated the kernel.

The occasionally more often now than before, the Memory buffer just goes
and dies, I notice this when one-third of my screen reduces to black and
multicolor pixel points in the middle of a download, email transfer and
using a browser.  I have over 300MGs of RAM available; this isn't
supposed to happen.  When I use Techtools to test the Video card,
everything reports ok.

yum tells me that everything that should be installed is, but gkrellm
tells me the running kernel still is Linux 2.4.20-8d which was the
standard 3.0 installment.  When I do a search using the find command I
do find headers for the new kernel and even a header for the kernel that
I believe should replace the older BOOT file but I don't find the kernel
nor the BOOT file itself.  

Could it be yum did an installation when it didn't leaving me with a
half-done system which is why I'm getting these other odd behaviors?
Or is something I missed doing and I should do now is the cure?  And why
isn't there a warning somewhere that these things would occur and to
watch for them.  In other words, if yum is doing a partial installation,
and I'm expected to pick up somewhere and complete the process, then
where are those instructions???

I really, really want my Linux box back to normal.  I use it much more
than I use the Mac OS.  Suggestions would be appreciated... Thanks.

-- 
Cherokee: Mitakuye Oyasin
English Translation: We are all related.

Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.
-- Dolores Ibarruri, 1936

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freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free
market are corollaries.
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possible -- not to have run away.
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Be Well...