9 ms·

I was under the impression that a newer kernel ment more hardware support. Am I wrong?

oinksoft 13y ago
Of course. The tone of the top-level comment, I think, is "woah, Debian, you call this kernel updated?" Rock-solid distros like RHEL/CentOS and Debian are deliberately conservative. Some folks don't like that.
- danieldk 13y ago
  But Red Hat used to (they probably still do) continuously backport a lot of drivers an functionality from newer kernels to their older, stable, kernel for the first 5.5 years after a release: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/ https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/ So I don't think RHEL/CentOS can be compared here to Debian.
- ra 13y ago
  Also more hardware support is less important on a server. Even less important on a virtualised server.
IanChiles 13y ago
RHEL often backports hardware support. Their kernel is heavily modified - its not really fair to call it 2.6.xx
JoshTriplett 13y ago
Debian's 3.2 kernel includes backported support for much newer hardware from more recent kernels. Debian's primary kernel maintainer, Ben Hutchings, also serves as the upstream maintainer of the 3.2 stable kernel series.
- petsos 13y ago
  And that I think is the biggest problem of Debian. They aim stability but how can you possibly claim that your custom backports are stable when e.g. the original developers have stopped supporting it? They may be able to pull it off with the kernel, but they can't possibly do it for all their packages. As an example: How are the Django backports to 1.2 more stable than upgrading to 1.3 when the official Django project has stopped supporting 1.2?
  - rogerbinns 13y ago
    Who says the original developers stopped supporting it? Head on over to http://www.kernel.org http://www.kernel.org and you'll see that 3.2 has longterm support (ie the kernel developers backport relevant fixes and patches). There are more details at https://www.kernel.org/releases.html https://www.kernel.org/releases.html including end of life dates. Given the time span between Debian releases, 3.2 is an excellent choice, if not the only one.
    - petsos 13y ago
      Right, this may be true for the kernel, but it can't be and it is not true for all of Debian's packages. Case in point Django: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/internals/security/ https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/internals/security/ Since the release of Django 1.4, version 1.2 stopped receiving security fixes by the Django development team. What that means is that a Debian maintainer (which probably is not a Django developer) would have to hack any new security fix into the unsupported 1.2. And this is deemed more stable than say, upgrading to 1.3. Note that Django is just an example, obviously there are many more packages with the exact same problem.
      - tshepang 13y ago
        "stable" does not necessarily mean "better"; In the case of Debian, it can mean "unchanging"... that is you can rely on it to not break your software even if you keep it ("stable") updated.
        petsos 13y ago
        True, but a security update means both better and more stable.
      - claudius 13y ago
        If the Debian maintainer has any idea what he’s doing, then this is likely to be more stable than upgrading to a new release that introduces new features and possibly incompatibilities. Fortunately, most Debian maintainers have a very good idea of what they’re doing.

Of course. The tone of the top-level comment, I think, is "woah, Debian, you call this kernel updated?" Rock-solid distros like RHEL/CentOS and Debian are deliberately conservative. Some folks don't like that.

danieldk 13y ago
But Red Hat used to (they probably still do) continuously backport a lot of drivers an functionality from newer kernels to their older, stable, kernel for the first 5.5 years after a release: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/ https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/ So I don't think RHEL/CentOS can be compared here to Debian.
ra 13y ago
Also more hardware support is less important on a server. Even less important on a virtualised server.

IanChiles 13y ago

RHEL often backports hardware support. Their kernel is heavily modified - its not really fair to call it 2.6.xx

JoshTriplett 13y ago

Debian's 3.2 kernel includes backported support for much newer hardware from more recent kernels. Debian's primary kernel maintainer, Ben Hutchings, also serves as the upstream maintainer of the 3.2 stable kernel series.

petsos 13y ago
And that I think is the biggest problem of Debian. They aim stability but how can you possibly claim that your custom backports are stable when e.g. the original developers have stopped supporting it? They may be able to pull it off with the kernel, but they can't possibly do it for all their packages. As an example: How are the Django backports to 1.2 more stable than upgrading to 1.3 when the official Django project has stopped supporting 1.2?
- rogerbinns 13y ago
  Who says the original developers stopped supporting it? Head on over to http://www.kernel.org http://www.kernel.org and you'll see that 3.2 has longterm support (ie the kernel developers backport relevant fixes and patches). There are more details at https://www.kernel.org/releases.html https://www.kernel.org/releases.html including end of life dates. Given the time span between Debian releases, 3.2 is an excellent choice, if not the only one.
  - petsos 13y ago
    Right, this may be true for the kernel, but it can't be and it is not true for all of Debian's packages. Case in point Django: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/internals/security/ https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/internals/security/ Since the release of Django 1.4, version 1.2 stopped receiving security fixes by the Django development team. What that means is that a Debian maintainer (which probably is not a Django developer) would have to hack any new security fix into the unsupported 1.2. And this is deemed more stable than say, upgrading to 1.3. Note that Django is just an example, obviously there are many more packages with the exact same problem.
    - tshepang 13y ago
      "stable" does not necessarily mean "better"; In the case of Debian, it can mean "unchanging"... that is you can rely on it to not break your software even if you keep it ("stable") updated.
      - petsos 13y ago
        True, but a security update means both better and more stable.
    - claudius 13y ago
      If the Debian maintainer has any idea what he’s doing, then this is likely to be more stable than upgrading to a new release that introduces new features and possibly incompatibilities. Fortunately, most Debian maintainers have a very good idea of what they’re doing.