Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

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MurphCID
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Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by MurphCID »

I noticed that I was updated to the 4.15.23 Kernel yesterday when I updated Mint. I am running 18.3, is this a fore-taste of what is to come under 19.x? What effect does the kernel update actually have for Mint 18.3? I haven't seen any change really, although the laptop seems to boot a bit faster (purely subjective on my part).

On a slightly different topic, I just love the easy, fast updates compared to either Windows 10 or Mac O/S x. I hate waiting 20-30 minutes to update my computer, I love that the updates are installed and you just keep working. I am upgrading my wife's laptop to windows 10 1803 and it has taken two hours, and is not ready yet. What a pain.
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michael louwe

Re: Linux kernal 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by michael louwe »

MurphCID wrote:.
.
Linux kernel 4.15 is LTS, ie supported by Canonical/Ubuntu for as long as Ubuntu 18.04/LM 19.0 LTS is supported = until 2023. For LM 18.x = 2021 EOL.

In general, newer kernel for newer hardware enablement, eg 7th-gen AMD A8-9600 APU processors require kernel 4.15 or higher.
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Re: Linux kernal 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by Hoser Rob »

MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm I noticed that I was updated to the 4.15.23 Kernel yesterday when I updated Mint. I am running 18.3, is this a fore-taste of what is to come under 19.x? What effect does the kernel update actually have for Mint 18.3? I haven't seen any change really, although the laptop seems to boot a bit faster (purely subjective on my part).
Newer kernels are mostly about hardware support and security, and if it is booting faster hardware support would most likely be the reason. But subjective judgements about these things aren't very reliable ... there probably isn't any difference.
On a slightly different topic, I just love the easy, fast updates compared to either Windows 10 or Mac O/S x. I hate waiting 20-30 minutes to update my computer, I love that the updates are installed and you just keep working. I am upgrading my wife's laptop to windows 10 1803 and it has taken two hours, and is not ready yet. What a pain.
Yes, it's one of the best features. ALso good for security because all your app software is updated unless you installed it by compiliing and building it.

Speaking of which, since using Linux I've wondered sometimes if WIndows updates actually just dl source code and then compile and build it. It's SO slow.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
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MurphCID
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Re: Linux kernal 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by MurphCID »

Hoser Rob wrote: Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:32 am
MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm I noticed that I was updated to the 4.15.23 Kernel yesterday when I updated Mint. I am running 18.3, is this a fore-taste of what is to come under 19.x? What effect does the kernel update actually have for Mint 18.3? I haven't seen any change really, although the laptop seems to boot a bit faster (purely subjective on my part).
Newer kernels are mostly about hardware support and security, and if it is booting faster hardware support would most likely be the reason. But subjective judgements about these things aren't very reliable ... there probably isn't any difference.
On a slightly different topic, I just love the easy, fast updates compared to either Windows 10 or Mac O/S x. I hate waiting 20-30 minutes to update my computer, I love that the updates are installed and you just keep working. I am upgrading my wife's laptop to windows 10 1803 and it has taken two hours, and is not ready yet. What a pain.
Yes, it's one of the best features. ALso good for security because all your app software is updated unless you installed it by compiliing and building it.

Speaking of which, since using Linux I've wondered sometimes if WIndows updates actually just dl source code and then compile and build it. It's SO slow.
You know you could be right. It took me NINE FLIPPING HOURS to download and install Windows 10 build 1803 on my wife's laptop yesterday. NINE FLIPPING HOURS! Did I mention it took NINE FLIPPING HOURS!!!! And she has a new(ish) AMD FX HP laptop (HP ENVY x360 - m6-ar004dx). I gave it to her last Christmas.
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Re: Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by thx-1138 »

MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm...................
I haven't seen any change really, although the laptop seems to boot a bit faster (purely subjective on my part).
...................
...you can have a look at benchmarks over at Phoronix from time to time, ie.:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... tery-Power
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... -Boot-Time
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... 1804&num=1

...ie. although things obviously become improved & fine-tuned in the long term overall,
usually the numbers don't change dramatically, but fluctuate slightly. To cut a long story short:
1) As already said above, it's highly hardware-depended:
you will certainly 'feel' the difference if you are on newer / latest hardware, & features / fixes about it get added or tweaked.
On older systems, most likely the difference won't be 'immediately' noticeable on usual desktop workloads.
2) If you read someone telling "i upgraded the kernel to the next revision and wah! kab00m! i saw 30% speed improvement zonk-hax0rz!",
you know he/she: either is on latest previously partially unsupported hardware - or simply doesn't know what the heck he/she is talking about...
As you can see above, even among several revisions through the years, in most cases at least, the fluctuation remains in single digit numbers...
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Re: Linux kernal 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by silvatech »

MurphCID wrote: Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:46 pm
Hoser Rob wrote: Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:32 am
MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm I noticed that I was updated to the 4.15.23 Kernel yesterday when I updated Mint. I am running 18.3, is this a fore-taste of what is to come under 19.x? What effect does the kernel update actually have for Mint 18.3? I haven't seen any change really, although the laptop seems to boot a bit faster (purely subjective on my part).
Newer kernels are mostly about hardware support and security, and if it is booting faster hardware support would most likely be the reason. But subjective judgements about these things aren't very reliable ... there probably isn't any difference.
On a slightly different topic, I just love the easy, fast updates compared to either Windows 10 or Mac O/S x. I hate waiting 20-30 minutes to update my computer, I love that the updates are installed and you just keep working. I am upgrading my wife's laptop to windows 10 1803 and it has taken two hours, and is not ready yet. What a pain.
Yes, it's one of the best features. ALso good for security because all your app software is updated unless you installed it by compiliing and building it.

Speaking of which, since using Linux I've wondered sometimes if WIndows updates actually just dl source code and then compile and build it. It's SO slow.
You know you could be right. It took me NINE FLIPPING HOURS to download and install Windows 10 build 1803 on my wife's laptop yesterday. NINE FLIPPING HOURS! Did I mention it took NINE FLIPPING HOURS!!!! And she has a new(ish) AMD FX HP laptop (HP ENVY x360 - m6-ar004dx). I gave it to her last Christmas.
This theory of mine is just a theory, but comes from having to deal with updating windows computers for clients for new 2 decades. example the kernals of Linux it installs a new kernel. Why you can revert to the previous. Most of windows updates the patches appear to be all consecutive so you have to update everything done in between. Updates a patch that broke something then next update fixes that but breaks something else, but in many cases it appears it has to install them in a consecutive order regardless. Anyways my theory of why its so slow over the years and based off of when i've had to manually fix patches.
balint

Re: Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by balint »

These are just my experiences with Mint 18.3 and different kernels.

I am using LxMint 18.3 as well, and when kernel 4.10 stopped being supported, I switched to 4.13 for security reasons. Since then my laptop (Acer Aspire V3-372 : http://termbin.com/s3e3) could not return from the sleep state and I had to force-stop the Linux.
Even, after latest 4.13 kernel update, connecting a TV-monitor to my HDMI port always froze the system.

I returned to the latest 4.4 kernel version and now everything works fine. Actually, I did not try 4.15.
I consider to clear install the upcoming LxMint 19 when released from scratch.
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Re: Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by sarge816 »

Latest 4.15 in 18.3 didn't like my nVidia drivers for my ancient Dell Precision m6300 laptop and kept crashing cinnamon into fallback mode. Latest 4.4 works perfectly - if it ain't broke...
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Re: Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by JerryF »

MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm I noticed that I was updated to the 4.15.23 Kernel yesterday when I updated Mint.
That's because you have either Level 4 and/or 5 checked in the Update Manager's or Always show and/or select kernel updates.
MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm On a slightly different topic, I just love the easy, fast updates compared to either Windows 10 or Mac O/S x. I hate waiting 20-30 minutes to update my computer, I love that the updates are installed and you just keep working. I am upgrading my wife's laptop to windows 10 1803 and it has taken two hours, and is not ready yet. What a pain.
I feel for you MurphCID. I had to go through that update. Yes, what a pain!!!
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Re: Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by MurphCID »

Yeah the speedy boot is purely perception on my part, I doubt that it is really that much faster, it just "seems" that way.
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Re: Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by Hoser Rob »

MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm... I love that the updates are installed and you just keep working....
Actually you shouldn't necessarily keep on working without rebooting. Sometimes it's still using the older version after the update is finished, and that can have security implications.

Fortunately it's fairly easy to see if a reboot is warranted by using checkrestart, which is included in the debian-goodies package. Just open a terminal and copy/paste this and run them:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install debian-goodies
The apt-get update is there because you should always update the software sources list before installing a package.

Then after a usual update execute this in the terminal:

Code: Select all

sudo checkrestart
And it'll tell you if you should reboot. But the answer is usually no, not necessary.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
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MurphCID
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Re: Linux kernel 4.15 and Mint 18.3

Post by MurphCID »

Hoser Rob wrote: Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:04 am
MurphCID wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:19 pm... I love that the updates are installed and you just keep working....
Actually you shouldn't necessarily keep on working without rebooting. Sometimes it's still using the older version after the update is finished, and that can have security implications.

Fortunately it's fairly easy to see if a reboot is warranted by using checkrestart, which is included in the debian-goodies package. Just open a terminal and copy/paste this and run them:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install debian-goodies
The apt-get update is there because you should always update the software sources list before installing a package.

Then after a usual update execute this in the terminal:

Code: Select all

sudo checkrestart
And it'll tell you if you should reboot. But the answer is usually no, not necessary.
Thank you! That is certainly less painful than NINE HOURS!!!! of Microcrap updates.
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