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I wonder if it's worth upgrading 4.13 kernel to 4.15. I cannot complain about any instability of 4.13, but I'm interested how 4.15 going on and if there are benefits upgrading.

Chai T. Rex
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Michael
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3 Answers3

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The best kernel to run is the one supplied with the distribution. This one is the most likely to get timely security updates, is most likely to be in a stable, dependable state, and most likely to be compatible with other things (such as loadable kernel modules - drivers - provided by other packages).

The mainline kernels do not benefit from any of the work that the Ubuntu team puts into fixing things to work well on Ubuntu, may not be as well-tested in Ubuntu, and should be considered for experimental purposes only. Not all drivers will work with them and in some cases getting a driver to work may involve recompiling the driver yourself.

thomasrutter
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  • Thanks for this solid reply. So there is no benefit to deviate from the default kernel – Michael Feb 01 '18 at 05:34
  • I think it depends. For my particular setup the 4.15 kernel behaves better because I suffer from that BIOS/Lenovo thing: my laptop now (with 17.10.1 and 4.13) always boots twice and says "Configuration changed - restarting system" after the first boot (before Ubuntu starts). That's really annoying. With 4.15 this error has gone and the laptop was back to normal. But I agree: if there's no need, then stick with the default kernel. – PerlDuck Feb 01 '18 at 12:19
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4.15 released February 1, 2018

Kernel version 4.15 was just released yesterday. It is reported to be about 8% faster than Kernel 4.11.

4.14 is 5 year Long Term kernel

Kernel version 4.14 is stable/mainline found at: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

Like 3.16, 4.4 and 4.9 Kernel version 4.14 is LTS (Long Time Support) kernel and will be maintained for five years by the Linux Kernel Team.

Starting with Kernel version 4.14.13 support for Spectre protection has been added. See: What is Ubuntu's status on the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities?. I've been running version 4.14.15 with no problems since it came out last week.

Having to manually install and remove kernels yourself involves extra work and is not considered practical for most users. See How to update kernel to the latest mainline version without any Distro-upgrade?

Community
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WinEunuuchs2Unix
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  • So is it worth upgrading from 4.13 to 4.14? – Michael Feb 01 '18 at 13:49
  • @MichaelNemtsev It's all relative. It was worth it for me to get Spectre patches and test on my machine. It was also worth it for improved WiFi and Ethernet support. You need to decide for yourself if it is worth it for your own machine. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Feb 01 '18 at 23:48
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4.13 has Meltdown protection only. I have not installed 4.15, but it is supposed to have spectre protection as well as meltdown.

Though, as thomasrutter mentions, it might be better to wait for ubuntu to back port it... or at minimum, switch to ubuntu's version as soon as it comes available.

ravery
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  • Spectre protection phase I was only released by Linux Kernel Team for 4.9.76+ and 4.14.13+ I'm clueless how to relate Linux Kernel 4.14.13 to Ubuntu Kernel 4.13.0-xx. Also in Linux terms 4.13 is EOL but 4.14 is an LTS that will be updated for 5 years. When you are reading on-line literature about kernels this constant Linux version translation to Ubuntu version makes life more complicated. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Feb 01 '18 at 23:55