Why does yum update says it is "Installing" one of the packages?

Question

When I run yum update, it lists the packages that it will upgrade. For one of the packages, kernel, it lists it under the "Installing" header. All other packages are listed under the "Upgrading" header. Why does it say that is "Installing" that package? The current version of that package is 4.14.104-95.84.amzn2 and it will be upgraded/installed to 4.14.114-103.97.amzn2. This is not even a major version change, in which case, it might have made sense. Is there a general case where this happens? Or is this only specific to kernel and related packages, since they are special in a sense?

Answer 1

From here - https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8-beta/html/managing_monitoring_and_updating_the_kernel/updating-kernel-with-yum_managing-monitoring-and-updating-the-kernel

The yum package manager always installs a new kernel instead of replacing the current one, which could potentially leave your system unbootable.

The system must be rebooted after installing kernel package for consistency, integrity reasons.

Also yum handles updating the kernel package so that end-user need not worry about upgrading or installing it.