[kwlug-disc] Why would an LTS install non-LTS kernels?

[B.S.]

>________________________________
> From: Darcy Casselman <dscassel at gmail.com>
>To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> 
>Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 7:09 PM
>Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Why would an LTS install non-LTS kernels?
>
>The LTS point releases ship updated kernels for hardware enablement.  The process is described here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack
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>
>Generally I'd expect that things that work shouldn't stop working.  But I know from experience that that assumption is naive.  It's software.  Stuff breaks.  Also, it's the kernel, and they do strange things sometimes.
>
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>On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 5:03 PM, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:

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> ...
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>>2. Why would an LTS release install a non-LTS kernel?


See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/1204_HWE_EOL as well.



IIRC, although what Darcy says may be true of point releases, once installed, the kernel doesn't make such leaps without one's manual steps.

Which is to say, if you're working, you don't have to now worry about a new kernel dropping on you without your selection, and breaking you.

OTOH, you can still enable HWE via such manual steps.

I did so on my 12.04 and have probably saved myself quite a bit of irritation in doing so. e.g. btrfs tools in original 12.04 is really early, and has come a long way since. Implemented in kernel. Later, kernels. HWE let me update the kernel, gaining later / more robust btrfs tools, like scrub, making me feel a little safer.

I do take your point, Khalid - guess nothing's 100% bulletproof, and you got holed.

In my case, in installing linux-image-generic-lts-trusty (in 12.04, linux-image-generic-lts-wily in 14.04), a complete new X stack came along, and I lost nvidia proprietary drivers along the way. In 14.04, I ended up rolling back.

Alternately, depending upon which you discover first, as you already well know, you can instead enable a ppa. (e.g. for btrfs tools.) However, at least some such updates require an updated kernel, so you end up enabling both the HWE and the ppa.

Although I've found my prior newbie impression of one stop shopping with repositories to be insufficient, even with ppa's and HWE I believe I'm still better off than the Windows equivalent, or even rpm systems which frequently appear to be little different than the old days of willy nilly downloading setup.exe's for just about anywhere.