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Now that Kernel 3.6 has been officially released, I'm wondering if the next Ubuntu point release will include the new Kernel?

Jorge Castro
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Milon
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2 Answers2

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12.04.2 includes Kernel 3.5 along with a newer Xorg, as part of the hardware enablement package, which is available here:

Do note that the Ubuntu image ISOs are also updated to use the new stack, so if you are doing new installations and want to keep the released 12.04 stack, you need to install from the older ISOs. These kernel upgrades are also not offered as part of normal upgrades, so there's no need to worry that you'll be upgraded from one major kernel version to the other. See the wiki page for more information.

The 3.2 kernel released with 12.04 will continue to be maintained for the life time (5 years) of precise. (and also Debian Wheezy)

This is a new policy. The decision to have such a updated kernel and Xorg was decided at the 2012 Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) in Oakland.

The most exciting feature about 3.5 (IMHO), Seccomp2, is part of the Precise 3.2 kernel.

Jorge Castro
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user72421
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  • Thanks for the information, I may hold off installing the LTS until 12.04.2 is released early next year. – Milon Jul 26 '12 at 05:18
  • The link you provided goes to a PPA. Are you suggesting that packages from that PPA will be merged into the official Ubuntu repos for precise? – thomasrutter Jul 26 '12 at 05:32
  • That ppa is run by the Ubuntu Xorg team, they will be merged into the repos for the 12.04.2 release, which is why the package names are differn't. @Milon May I ask specific what the problem with 3.2 is? – user72421 Jul 26 '12 at 05:38
  • You are confusing the optional backport kernels (which have always been available, and are for Lucid (i.e. 3.0-series)), with the kernel upgrades provided as main or security updates, which will remain the original series. Can you provide a source (mailing list message, etc.) for the "new" policy? – ish Jul 26 '12 at 05:57
  • ugghh, I was there. And also that ppa documents it and is published by the xorg team. – user72421 Jul 26 '12 at 17:37
  • The naming structure suggests that its the optional backport as explained -- are you saying that 3.5/3.6/whatever will now be provided as a mandatory security update? – ish Jul 26 '12 at 18:31
  • No, it will be provided as an alternate, and IIRC will be the kernel shipped with the 12.04.2 CDs as default, so that later releases still work with modern hardware. – user72421 Jul 27 '12 at 01:36
  • @user72421 Interesting to learn about the "LTS Enablement Stacks"; however, the original question was about 3.6, and I'm kind of waiting for 3.6 as a specific hardware feature is supposedly implemented there. Is the "LTS Enablement Stacks" going to deliver 3.5 or 3.6 or both, but only after a while? – nutty about natty Feb 22 '13 at 08:19
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Not officially. LTS releases typically don't change kernel versions; see 10.04 Lucid -- it's still on the 2.6.x series.

But note these exceptions:

  • Changes/patches that affect stability, security, etc. are typically backported from 3.5, etc. by the Ubuntu kernel team into the 3.2 series for 12.04.
  • Optional "LTS backport" kernels will be provided, based on the kernel series bundled in each future non-LTS release, which you may choose to install. These are not supported and probably haven't been tested as extensively by Canonical as the regular updated kernels
    • These backported kernel packages are typically named linux-image-...-lts-backport-RELEASE, e.g. 10.04 LTS has linux-image-...-lts-backport-maverick, linux-image-...-lts-backport-natty, etc.
    • See the full kernel release map here
  • If you want the cutting-edge, you can directly install the "mainline" kernel builds, but in that case you may as well upgrade to the next Ubuntu non-LTS versions...
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