Greg Kroah-Hartman gives his take on what kernel should one use

[oldgranola]

I've been having fun just learning about linux in general, structure, learning commands, utilities, etc and playing around with different distros, kernels, on different devices round home. I ran into this recent post by the" kernel stable release guy" Greg Kroa-Hartman at the linux foundation titled "what stable kernel should I use" and found it very useful for this poor noob to read. Search didn't see it posted so have a fun read: http://kroah.com/log/blog/2018/08/24/wh ... uld-i-use/

[catweazel]

I've been having fun just learning about linux in general, structure, learning commands, utilities, etc and playing around with different distros, kernels, on different devices round home. I ran into this recent post by the" kernel stable release guy" Greg Kroa-Hartman at the linux foundation titled "what stable kernel should I use" and found it very useful for this poor noob to read. Search didn't see it posted so have a fun read: http://kroah.com/log/blog/2018/08/24/wh ... uld-i-use/

The problem with that article is that it doesn't take Ubuntu LTS kernels seriously enough. The Ubuntu 4.15 series is LTS in Ubuntu 18.04, for example. Anyone installing a mainline kernel needs to be aware that if things go south then they need to have sufficient knowledge to get themselves out of trouble because those other kernels are not supported.

To put it another way, kernels other then the approved Ubuntu kernels are absolutely not tested or supported. If things take a turn for the worst people are expected to be knowledgable enough to repair their system on their own.

[oldgranola]

catweazel,
My reading would put ubuntu and derivitives into his section:

Distribution kernels

The best solution for almost all Linux users is to just use the kernel from your favorite Linux distribution...There are some community distributions that take a bit longer to move to a new kernel release, but eventually get there and support the kernel they currently have quite well. Those are also great to use, and examples of these are Debian and Ubuntu..

Also, my reading is that "stables" and LTS's are indeed supported but in the sense of the kernel itself being updated etc, not how to install/uninstall or how to use linux or make it work. Not in the scope of the article or my brining it up. But I'm playing with some bare Arch (and Manjaro Arch) right now but still find plenty of guides and support. It'll take a while before I can roll my own certainly. My point is simply that I found this article helpful in understanding the kernel landscape

[catweazel]

catweazel,
My reading would put ubuntu and derivitives into his section:

Distribution kernels

The best solution for almost all Linux users is to just use the kernel from your favorite Linux distribution...There are some community distributions that take a bit longer to move to a new kernel release, but eventually get there and support the kernel they currently have quite well. Those are also great to use, and examples of these are Debian and Ubuntu..

Also, my reading is that "stables" and LTS's are indeed supported but in the sense of the kernel itself being updated etc, not how to install/uninstall or how to use linux or make it work. Not in the scope of the article or my brining it up. But I'm playing with some bare Arch (and Manjaro Arch) right now but still find plenty of guides and support. It'll take a while before I can roll my own certainly. My point is simply that I found this article helpful in understanding the kernel landscape

I have no issue with that. My comments were intended more for people who know less.

[xenopeek]

The problem with that article is that it doesn't take Ubuntu LTS kernels seriously enough.

You were reading a different article? The top recommendation in the article is to your distribution's kernel. While the article points out the obvious problems with "LTS" kernels, it highlights that "the developers assigned to these tasks do some wonderful work" and that "the support you get from these companies is worth it when something goes wrong".

While you could use the Ubuntu LTS kernel, no Linux Mint user will be using it by default. Instead they are using the Ubuntu HWE kernel. The LTS kernel can be used for the entirety of the release's support period. The HWE kernel is updated within the first year to a next upstream kernel and after that 3 more times every 6 months after. So you get 4 upstream kernel updates during the first 2½ years of a release's support period and the last update is supported for the remainder of the release's support period.

[xenopeek]

I'm playing with some bare Arch (and Manjaro Arch) right now

You can install the regular (or hardened or zen) kernel side-by-side with the LTS kernel (linux-lts package). Might be handy as a fallback though personally I'd just boot from a rescue disk and roll back the kernel packages to an earlier version.

[gm10]

Good article, nothing to disagree with in there.

I feel it worth pointing out that the LTS kernels he is talking about are NOT the Ubuntu LTS kernels but something else entirely, namely the ones with the "longterm" moniker on the kernel.org front page. Just so nobody gets confused over that.

And another reason for sticking to your Ubuntu kernel that hasn't been mentioned is driver support: The Ubuntu kernels include a lot of development stage drivers that have not been included in the official kernel.org kernels yet.