MGA3 Update -wireless gone and additional kernels

[Trio3b]

MGA 3 KDE installed via Live DVD on Dell inspiron N5010.

1. Upon full recommended update the broadcom wl kernel is removed and I lose wireless and must reinstall several broadcom packages. Noticed this happened also when updating (not upgrading) MGA2 on the same machine.
Why is this and is it a bug?


2. Also, after update about 4 additional kernel choices available at boot. What is their purpose? Been my experience they should not be removed.


3. During update I tried to deselect additional language packs for libreoffice and firefox to lessen d/l time but this was ignored adding lots of time to download.

[djennings]

2. Also, after update about 4 additional kernel choices available at boot. What is their purpose?

These are your old kernels. If you have trouble with the new kernel e.g. wireless then you can boot from the old kernel and wireless will work again. If you decide to permanently stay on an old kernel in Mageia Control Centre>Boot>SetUpBoot choose the kernel you want to be the default.
One of the entries in the grub menu will be to boot in "safe mode", which is into a text console to help you debug if a full boot does not work.

Been my experience they should not be removed.

You can remove them if you like.
Do not remove them by editing the grub menu. Instead remove the kernel packages using the software GUI in Mageia Control Centre.
Obviously you must leave at least one kernel still installed, and do not remove a kernel until you are sure you do not need it any more.

The grub menu will be automatically updated when you remove a kernel.

1. Upon full recommended update the broadcom wl kernel is removed and I lose wireless and must reinstall several broadcom packages. Noticed this happened also when updating (not upgrading) MGA2 on the same machine.
Why is this and is it a bug?

No it is not a bug. Your wireless module was installed on the old kernel where it is still available.
To get it on the new kernel depends on how you installed the wireless module in the first place.

1/ If you compiled it by hand, then you will need to compile it by hand for the new kernel too.
(Although it will be easier to install it with one of the other methods)

2/ If you installed it using a mageia package , then you will need the package for the broadcom wireless for the new kernel too such as
broadcom-wl-kernel-3.8.13.4-desktop-1.mga3
But remembering to do that is a pain. So instead install the package broadcom-wl-kernel-desktop-latest and the latest wireless driver will be automatically installed when the
kernel-desktop-latest package gets updated. You should then find wireless works every time there is a kernel update.

3/ If you are using a custom kernel, or one of the alternative kernels provided in mageia, then to automatically compile the kernel module when a new kernel is installed install the dkms-broadcom-wl package. On the next boot after installing a new kernel the boot will be very slow because a new kernel module is being built. For this to work you must have the kernel headers installed for the new kernel. Kernel headers for the default kernel are in kernel-desktop-devel-latest.
Note: You do not need to install dkms if you are using the standard mageia kernel. broadcom-wl-kernel-desktop-latest as described above should be all you need.