5 ms·

Greg Kroah-Hartman Stretches Support Periods for Key Linux LTS Kernels

70 points by brideoflinux 8mo ago

brideoflinux 8mo ago
[flagged]
- seanhunter 8mo ago
  We neither need, nor benefit from this precis, which is longer than the headline but contains no additional information and insight. On hn people are encouraged to read tfa for themselves.
  - kunley 8mo ago
    Actually, as the article falls into that "ad begging" category and requires time-consuming disabling of tracking, I can understand why someone posts a summary.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 8mo ago
      I don't personally mind summaries (generally), but this isn't even a (useful) summary, it's effectively the same information as is in the title.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 8mo ago
    [flagged]
  - zahlman 8mo ago
    If you have showdead on, that user's comment history is rather full of this sort of thing. Seemingly restarted half a year ago, but with similar conduct in the pre-LLM era as well.
jauntywundrkind 8mo ago
Are we seeing Android phones upgrade their kernels yet? This Samsung S22 is still on 5.10. I thought that part of the idea for Android GKI was that phones would start getting kernel upgrades. But I'm not sure if that's actually happening. I wish there was more pressure for this. Especially as Android Virtualization Framework starts really arriving & being useful, having a more modern kernel could be a very nice help, could offer neat new capabilities.
- Palomides 8mo ago
  there's basically zero intersection between mainline linux version support timelines and android kernels as deployed on phones
- b112 8mo ago
  Why would there be a need to upgrade the kernel? Security updates are often backported, so it can still be 5.10 but patched...
  - jauntywundrkind 8mo ago
    A couple times a year I get the joy of reading Kernel Newbies release notes for new kernels. And just being so delighted at all the amazing improvements happening. So many won't affect me or won't be big changes. But often there are amazing new capabilities and options too that do entice. Performance wins keep landing. Compatibility with other devices expands. Improvement is ongoing & continual. https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_6.17 https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_6.17 It just takes my breath away, is existentially scary, to hear folks be ok with being totally stuck on place. With devices that use open source but which are so fundamentally dead, are tuned out from that amazing growing goodness, are shovelware devices thrown over the wall that never improves while time marches forward. This would be totally unacceptable for anyone on a computer. But somehow on consumer devices, it's just expected and accepted that everything is just stuck where it is, that it's ok to be so so so much worse than what everyone else is doing. It sounds like such a miserable existence, and I think it's just gobsmacking that such apathy & pass giving gets a break. Will some things break sometimes? Honestly I think that's way overblown a concern, but yes, some, a tiny bit of things will break. Especially at first. I tend to think the risk is generally quite small. And often with engineering, the way to deal with your hard parts is to keep doing them. If anything, I expect that the risk of staying where we are is huge: we have thousands or perhaps millions of different kernel trees out there, bespoke special magical trees, for various devices, forked from magical point in time vendor BSPs, with special magical changes that we have to keep perpetuating, while integrating important fixes. This all sounds ridiculously unstable and risky, and inordinately costly to maintain. It seems reckless and dangerous to stick to this absurd course, to do everything so badly, at such human cost. Getting the fricking drivers upstreamed, maybe getting rid of this ridiculous anti-support GKI layer that apparently does no good and only makes it easier to be bad at updating & negligence & caring: that would reduce risk. That would decrease society from having to test these thousands or millions of kernels, and let us create a known predictable focus for our energies and tests, rather than this madcap batshit infinite vendor diversity that GKI has only sort of tamed. This is such a shit situation to be in, and Android brings shame to computing, and if it's going to be so bad at Linux, it ethically doesn't deserve to have Linux. It is breaking the pact of what Linux can and should mean, and betraying consumers, by letting itself be a product that rots into obsolescence like this. This is a techno-spiritual sin, and it is a mortal sin.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
lousken 8mo ago
No 6.1? That's disappointing. Also I am surprised the previous decision wasn't reverted sooner. Linux foundation surely has enough resources to upkeep LTS kernels for longer.
- i_think_so 8mo ago
  I think the excess "resources" it has is cash. Human brains are a bit more constrained inside the LF, from what I gather. From TFA: > Kernel end-of-life dates mean very little for users, even at the enterprise level. Enterprise Linux distros have already been supporting official expired kernels for decades. It's strange to think of LF "throwing it over the wall" on a timeline of years and decades, but the vendors really do assume the LTS responsibility as part of their value proposition, no?
xbar 8mo ago
Glad to see every single one of these decisions. Thanks to the maintainers and the foundation for making this happen.
kelnos 8mo ago
I'm having trouble squaring these two statements from the article: > the Linux kernel is catching up with its users’ wants when it comes to longevity. > Kernel end-of-life dates mean very little for users, even at the enterprise level. So... no one cares about longevity? Or they do? I'm confused.
- killingtime74 8mo ago
  It explains further down that it means little because unofficial support was already available
- wtallis 8mo ago
  Enterprises that care about using a kernel for many years typically put their own resources into providing the level of maintenance they require (or getting it from a distro that maintains their own LTS kernels), rather than depending on upstream to keep the patches coming for that branch. But if the upstream kernel support timelines become more closely aligned with what those downstream users want, they may shift to tracking upstream LTS branches.

70 points by brideoflinux 8mo ago

brideoflinux 8mo ago

[flagged]

seanhunter 8mo ago
We neither need, nor benefit from this precis, which is longer than the headline but contains no additional information and insight. On hn people are encouraged to read tfa for themselves.
- kunley 8mo ago
  Actually, as the article falls into that "ad begging" category and requires time-consuming disabling of tracking, I can understand why someone posts a summary.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8mo ago
    I don't personally mind summaries (generally), but this isn't even a (useful) summary, it's effectively the same information as is in the title.
- ThePowerOfFuet 8mo ago
  [flagged]
- zahlman 8mo ago
  If you have showdead on, that user's comment history is rather full of this sort of thing. Seemingly restarted half a year ago, but with similar conduct in the pre-LLM era as well.

jauntywundrkind 8mo ago

Are we seeing Android phones upgrade their kernels yet? This Samsung S22 is still on 5.10. I thought that part of the idea for Android GKI was that phones would start getting kernel upgrades. But I'm not sure if that's actually happening. I wish there was more pressure for this. Especially as Android Virtualization Framework starts really arriving & being useful, having a more modern kernel could be a very nice help, could offer neat new capabilities.

Palomides 8mo ago
there's basically zero intersection between mainline linux version support timelines and android kernels as deployed on phones
b112 8mo ago
Why would there be a need to upgrade the kernel? Security updates are often backported, so it can still be 5.10 but patched...
- jauntywundrkind 8mo ago
  A couple times a year I get the joy of reading Kernel Newbies release notes for new kernels. And just being so delighted at all the amazing improvements happening. So many won't affect me or won't be big changes. But often there are amazing new capabilities and options too that do entice. Performance wins keep landing. Compatibility with other devices expands. Improvement is ongoing & continual. https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_6.17 https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_6.17 It just takes my breath away, is existentially scary, to hear folks be ok with being totally stuck on place. With devices that use open source but which are so fundamentally dead, are tuned out from that amazing growing goodness, are shovelware devices thrown over the wall that never improves while time marches forward. This would be totally unacceptable for anyone on a computer. But somehow on consumer devices, it's just expected and accepted that everything is just stuck where it is, that it's ok to be so so so much worse than what everyone else is doing. It sounds like such a miserable existence, and I think it's just gobsmacking that such apathy & pass giving gets a break. Will some things break sometimes? Honestly I think that's way overblown a concern, but yes, some, a tiny bit of things will break. Especially at first. I tend to think the risk is generally quite small. And often with engineering, the way to deal with your hard parts is to keep doing them. If anything, I expect that the risk of staying where we are is huge: we have thousands or perhaps millions of different kernel trees out there, bespoke special magical trees, for various devices, forked from magical point in time vendor BSPs, with special magical changes that we have to keep perpetuating, while integrating important fixes. This all sounds ridiculously unstable and risky, and inordinately costly to maintain. It seems reckless and dangerous to stick to this absurd course, to do everything so badly, at such human cost. Getting the fricking drivers upstreamed, maybe getting rid of this ridiculous anti-support GKI layer that apparently does no good and only makes it easier to be bad at updating & negligence & caring: that would reduce risk. That would decrease society from having to test these thousands or millions of kernels, and let us create a known predictable focus for our energies and tests, rather than this madcap batshit infinite vendor diversity that GKI has only sort of tamed. This is such a shit situation to be in, and Android brings shame to computing, and if it's going to be so bad at Linux, it ethically doesn't deserve to have Linux. It is breaking the pact of what Linux can and should mean, and betraying consumers, by letting itself be a product that rots into obsolescence like this. This is a techno-spiritual sin, and it is a mortal sin.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

lousken 8mo ago

No 6.1? That's disappointing. Also I am surprised the previous decision wasn't reverted sooner. Linux foundation surely has enough resources to upkeep LTS kernels for longer.

i_think_so 8mo ago
I think the excess "resources" it has is cash. Human brains are a bit more constrained inside the LF, from what I gather. From TFA: > Kernel end-of-life dates mean very little for users, even at the enterprise level. Enterprise Linux distros have already been supporting official expired kernels for decades. It's strange to think of LF "throwing it over the wall" on a timeline of years and decades, but the vendors really do assume the LTS responsibility as part of their value proposition, no?

xbar 8mo ago

Glad to see every single one of these decisions. Thanks to the maintainers and the foundation for making this happen.

kelnos 8mo ago

I'm having trouble squaring these two statements from the article: > the Linux kernel is catching up with its users’ wants when it comes to longevity. > Kernel end-of-life dates mean very little for users, even at the enterprise level. So... no one cares about longevity? Or they do? I'm confused.

killingtime74 8mo ago
It explains further down that it means little because unofficial support was already available
wtallis 8mo ago
Enterprises that care about using a kernel for many years typically put their own resources into providing the level of maintenance they require (or getting it from a distro that maintains their own LTS kernels), rather than depending on upstream to keep the patches coming for that branch. But if the upstream kernel support timelines become more closely aligned with what those downstream users want, they may shift to tracking upstream LTS branches.