Debian 11.5 Released With NVIDIA Driver Security Fixes, Linux Retbleed Mitigation, Other

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Debian 11.5 Released With NVIDIA Driver Security Fixes, Linux Retbleed Mitigation, Other

The Debian project today released Debian 11.5 and Debian 10.3 as the newest versions of their free GNU/Linux operating system...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-11.5-Released

[MastaG]

I wonder why they would go through all the trouble of maintaining an older kernel.
wouldn't it be better to just include the latest stable instead?

I mean, if I'd run 5.10 on my laptop, it wouldn't even have working audio...

[redgreen925]

I wonder why they would go through all the trouble of maintaining an older kernel.
wouldn't it be better to just include the latest stable instead?

I mean, if I'd run 5.10 on my laptop, it wouldn't even have working audio...

That is not how a Debian release works. When they release a new stable version it is just that a stable unchanging version of the software in use at that time. There are repositories called backports where newer software is released built with the software contained in the stable distribution so it will be compatible, that would get you the newer kernel you would want. For security issues with the older software they take the fixes and again do a backport of them to the older version of the software and it is released in the security repository to allow an update from there.

[billyswong]

The Debian project today released Debian 11.5 and Debian 10.3 as the newest versions of their free GNU/Linux operating system.

Typo in version number

[DanL]

I wonder why they would go through all the trouble of maintaining an older kernel.

The 5.10.x kernel series is a longterm kernel maintained upstream until 2026, so Debian is not doing all the work.

https://www.kernel.org/releases.html

wouldn't it be better to just include the latest stable instead?

I'm guessing a lot of people running Debian stable don't want to be doing major kernel upgrades every 8 weeks or so. And there are newer kernels in backports repo for those that want them.

[GreenReaper]

I wonder why they would go through all the trouble of maintaining an older kernel.
wouldn't it be better to just include the latest stable instead?

I mean, if I'd run 5.10 on my laptop, it wouldn't even have working audio...

People running Debian - often on servers - generally want to be sure that it will continue to do exactly what it was doing already when they do a point upgrade. Frequently a new version of a package will not do that - it has different features, it runs faster or slower in some circumstances, it has new bugs or dependencies. And they want security updates for a while - perhaps longer than the upstream maintainers will do them.

Newer kernels are available, though - for example, in bullseye-backports you can get 5.18.16, and that is updated every month or so. Some software projects have their own Debian package setup so you can pick every version, not just the one packages at the time the distribution was branched. Or you can run on the rolling testing or unstable branches - but they may run differently from day to day.

[ATLief]

I'm guessing a lot of people running Debian stable don't want to be doing major kernel upgrades every 8 weeks or so.

They might be talking about the latest LTS release, 5.15. That’s still probably not what most Debian Stable users would want, though. Maybe that’s what (shudder) Ubuntu is for…

[redgreen925]

They might be talking about the latest LTS release, 5.15. That’s still probably not what most Debian Stable users would want, though. Maybe that’s what (shudder) Ubuntu is for…

I doubt they would want the just about weekly update of the kernel in Ubuntu either. It is not a major release just a stupid little point update busy work by the person(s) doing the package maintenance to justify their job.

[yossarianuk]

I wonder why they would go through all the trouble of maintaining an older kernel.
wouldn't it be better to just include the latest stable instead?

I mean, if I'd run 5.10 on my laptop, it wouldn't even have working audio...

This is why all desktop distros should be rolling ones.

[ATLief]

I doubt they would want the just about weekly update of the kernel in Ubuntu either. It is not a major release just a stupid little point update busy work by the person(s) doing the package maintenance to justify their job.

All supported kernel versions are updated every ~2 weeks. Debian updates it about once a month, but you could similarly choose to only install kernel updates once a month on Ubuntu.

It would be nice if there was a Debian “Semi-Stable” every year in addition to the regular Stable every 2 years, but that’s basically what Ubuntu is. Unfortunately it comes with all the other Ubuntu changes.