4 ms·

Stable versions of Linux often keep the same linux kernel, with security patches, for half a decade. It's the only way to run a desktop and maintain stability.

by b112 8mo ago

jauntywundrkind 8mo ago
That is news to the millions of linux users who upgrade their kernels regularly, and suffer zero consequences. It's cowardice and FUD, in my view, to clutch to such old versions. It's just bad practice and bad engineering, and a crock of scary tales to make other people (& the people doing this) think their bad engineering & absurd self-injuring time-wasting practices are good, actually. A lot of devices need to change their expectations around what qualification means, for a lot of systems & devices where requalification is such a pain that a kernel upgrade is a daunting task.
gbin 8mo ago
Here: 20 years of desktops and laptops basically installing the latest kernel asap on Gentoo then Arch. I did break stuff, especially Gentoo, a lot... but out of those I maybe got hit once by a kernel regression? I don't think people realize how long it takes for the kernel to eventually catch up with your hardware. My one year old framework laptop motherboard STILL don't have properly implemented usb-c PD apis in the kernel today. Imagine if I took a 5y old kernel?
alpaca128 8mo ago
Did you actually try Arch? I ran it for three years on a laptop and it was more reliable with fewer issues than most stable distros I used.
bigfatkitten 8mo ago
Google found, on their 100,000+ machine Linux desktop fleet that sticking with “stable” releases and doing major upgrades periodically was far more work than rolling releases. https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioners/how-google-got-to-rolling-linux-releases-for-desktops https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioner...

4 ms·

Stable versions of Linux often keep the same linux kernel, with security patches, for half a decade. It's the only way to run a desktop and maintain stability.

by b112 8mo ago

Stable versions of Linux often keep the same linux kernel, with security patches, for half a decade. It's the only way to run a desktop and maintain stability.

jauntywundrkind 8mo ago
That is news to the millions of linux users who upgrade their kernels regularly, and suffer zero consequences. It's cowardice and FUD, in my view, to clutch to such old versions. It's just bad practice and bad engineering, and a crock of scary tales to make other people (& the people doing this) think their bad engineering & absurd self-injuring time-wasting practices are good, actually. A lot of devices need to change their expectations around what qualification means, for a lot of systems & devices where requalification is such a pain that a kernel upgrade is a daunting task.
gbin 8mo ago
Here: 20 years of desktops and laptops basically installing the latest kernel asap on Gentoo then Arch. I did break stuff, especially Gentoo, a lot... but out of those I maybe got hit once by a kernel regression? I don't think people realize how long it takes for the kernel to eventually catch up with your hardware. My one year old framework laptop motherboard STILL don't have properly implemented usb-c PD apis in the kernel today. Imagine if I took a 5y old kernel?
alpaca128 8mo ago
Did you actually try Arch? I ran it for three years on a laptop and it was more reliable with fewer issues than most stable distros I used.
bigfatkitten 8mo ago
Google found, on their 100,000+ machine Linux desktop fleet that sticking with “stable” releases and doing major upgrades periodically was far more work than rolling releases. https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioners/how-google-got-to-rolling-linux-releases-for-desktops https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioner...