Ubuntu 9.04 Will NOT Ship With The Linux 2.6.29 Kernel

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 9.04 Will NOT Ship With The Linux 2.6.29 Kernel

Ubuntu 9.04, the next Linux operating system release due out by Canonical in April, will not be shipping with the Linux 2.6.29 kernel like many had hoped for. The feature freeze for the Jaunty Jackalope is not until next week and the Linux 2.6.29 kernel will certainly be released by April (right now it's at -rc4 stage), but Canonical's kernel team has decided to stick with using the current Linux 2.6.28 stable series. The Linux 2.6.28 kernel was released back in December, but the 2.6.29 kernel is introducing mainline support for Btrfs, Intel kernel mode-setting support, and various other new features...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzA1OA

[Kano]

I see no real reason to use 2.6.29 right now. In order to let an os install the kernel has to support the hd controller, everything else like some sound problems or lan could be solved with a later update. Well most lan adapters should also work with 2.6.28 - a very new Asrock G31M-GS onboard nic (r8169) needs for example 2.6.28 to work. But when the system is installed, just compile whatever kernel you want to use if you are not satisfied. Just don't forget about the initrd when root=UUID=... is used -> update-initramfs -c -k KERNEL_VER.

[remm]

I've been using 2.6.29 on F10 (they already have test packages) due to wifi problems, and looked like a great kernel to me. Not sure the Ubuntu folks really know what they are doing kernel wise, of course ;)

[bugmenot]

I'm happy that they stay with 2.6.28. It's new enough and the last time it was only an exeption.

[BlackStar]

The question is, are there any significant changes to Ext4 support between 2.6.28 and 2.6.29? Several users have reported instability with Ext4 in the current kernel.

[Craig73]

I was looking forward to new and shiny :-) ... but don't know the pros/cons one way or the other so can't judge. (I am looking forward to all the great graphic advances of late both on Intel's side and Gallium3d to making their way into the wild)

[gzahl]

What a pitty.. i would really liked to see .29 in 9.04, because .28 has a Bug , so that my whole USB Bus freezes, when i use USB mass storgage devices. And this is fixed in .29, which im using allready with 8.10 :(

[Melcar]

Damn, really wanted the new kernel. Guess its to compiling again. Oh well, at least now AMD won't have excuses not to have a working driver for this release.

[KDesk]

But the 2.6.28 kernel is more stable and tested, the 2.6.29 kernel will only be ~3 weeks tested.

Also, the Ubuntu Kernel Team is backporting (in all the releases they do that) many changes from .29 to .28

The kernel in Jaunty is the latest stable, 2.6.28.4, with many ext4 fixes http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/l/linux/linux_2.6.28-7.20/changelog

If someone needs a newer kernel, like Kano says, they can compile it in some minutes. There are many guides to compile kernels, and sure there is a repo (maybe PPA) for new kernels.

[he_the_great]

Once Debian releases on Feb. 14... next year, I expect testing will be moving to the 2.6.29 kernel, I'm happy not having to wait for Ubuntu's "scheduled" release to get the latest stuff.

[Kano]

Compared to lenny release kernel, 2.6.28 is a much better choice. Also Debian stays with old ide drivers to make updates more easy which I don't like at all. One of my nic needs an update to r8169 driver, which does not work up to 2.6.27, so no way for network install lenny...

[Vadi]

People don't want FF3, they want OOo3, but not this and that...

I think it's fine to stick with a bit of stability - Ubuntu has lately been getting critism lately for being unstable and having hardware stuff completely break.

ie, bluetooth not working at all atm.

[Kano]

OOO3 is really easy to get, from openoffice.org you get debian packages for 32 + 64 bit which work with etch and any newer distro.

[Vadi]

Except that the only big feature of OOo3 was the ms compatibility, which ubuntu's 2.4 version was patched with. So people just fussed over nothing.

[M1AU]

I'm also interested in the current Ext4 situation. Does 2.6.28 has any drawbacks compared to 2.6.29?

[Kano]

There are ext4 backports, but for all who like to use 2.6.29 in a correct way (packaged) you can do this:

sudo apt-get install kernel-package fakeroot

cd dir-with-source

LANG= make-kpkg --initrd --rootcmd fakeroot --revision 1 --us --uc kernel_image kernel_headers

then you get 2 debs - which work fine with dkms too. In case your kernel-package is too old just fetch the one from Debian:

http://packages.debian.org/sid/all/kernel-package/download

[DanL]

I've been using 2.6.29 on F10 (they already have test packages) due to wifi problems, and looked like a great kernel to me. Not sure the Ubuntu folks really know what they are doing kernel wise, of course ;)
I think the Ubuntu devs made an informed decision here, and just because a kernel still in devlopment worked well for you, it doesn't mean that it's a good idea for Ubuntu to adopt it (especially at this stage of their release cycle).

[jeffro-tull]

I never thought Ubuntu prided itself on being a bleeding edge distribution. So, what's the problem? They've got the stable 2.6.28, and they've got... 2 months to fix whatever bugs need to be fixed. Good call on their part.

[sreyan]

Except that the only big feature of OOo3 was the ms compatibility, which ubuntu's 2.4 version was patched with. So people just fussed over nothing.

Actually on my netbook, OOo 3 starts up far far faster than 2.4. I don't really care about MS compatibility that much.

[Svartalf]

Except that the only big feature of OOo3 was the ms compatibility, which ubuntu's 2.4 version was patched with. So people just fussed over nothing.


Actually, there appears some minor OO formatting changes (it dinks up a few things in Impress at the least...not sure why, but...)- if you've got someone using OO.org 3, and you get something from there, the content opens, but you may find some minor reformatting work needing to be done there. I found this out by doing a VirtualBox demo and did some editing between the 2.4 version and the 3.0 version on the Windows side and ended up needing to have the same versions in hand to pull my stupid PC stunt with VirtualBox (i.e. Editing the slides in the XP VM, doing it again in the Linux side directly, and then back again on the XP side. :D

[Kjella]

I never thought Ubuntu prided itself on being a bleeding edge distribution. So, what's the problem? They've got the stable 2.6.28, and they've got... 2 months to fix whatever bugs need to be fixed. Good call on their part.

They shipped an unreleased version of Firefox in an LTS release and I think everyone that struggled with PulseAudio would disagree with that statement. However, they haven't forgotten they run servers too so I expected them to be reasonably conservative with choice of kernel. I look forward to it anyway, skipped 8.10 and will go from 8.04 to 9.04 :)

[KDesk]

If you need or want/like a blending edge distribution with the latest Kernel, Xorg, DE or WM, you can use a rolling release (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_release) distro.

There are some of those, my favorite is Arch Linux. You have only to install the OS once and update. You don't have to wait 6 or 8 months to have the latest upstream stable software.