Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Likely To Ship With Linux 5.4 As Opposed To 5.5

[AlphaCluster]

I am excited for Ubuntu to finally follow upstream LTS. People worried about Navi enabling for navi12 and 14 should check the commits they are like single line changes just to add ids to the kernel. I checked and 5.4.17 I found the navi12 changes so I really would be surprised if full kernel support is backported minus overclocking (only real new navi feature in 5.5?). The changes that are really needed are Mesa drivers and the firmwares both are going to be latest going in.

This really lands on AMD as I was barely able to get navi10 working on 9.10 because the 5.3 kernel had bugs and while supposedly it was supported I had to either pull in the 20.04 firmwares or use wayland to not get mouse jitter. Good news is the depending on newer firmware is a low risk as you can pull the package from any newer versions of Ubuntu since it’s just a copy of bin files pulled off kernel.org.

[Azrael5]

A simple question about Fedora which is one of the few linux operating system almost completely based on Wayland that deals with ordinary upgrades of kernel. Does Fedora allows the user to play netflix? Is it provided of all the codecs and libraries useful for activity? Fedora is an excellent operating system though I prefer PLASMA desktop but it has some limitations unlike other linux operating systems which hanger the user. IF Fedora has fixed this limitations probably I could use it in one of my computer so to take benefit of the ordinary kernel upgrades.

[DanL]

390 is supported until end of 2022, 340 is EOL now.

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/support-timeframes-for-unix-legacy-gpu-releases

I'm all confused (as usual). I'm sorry.

[tjaalton]

I'm referring to the Nvidia 390 (not 340) legacy driver, which just had its last release (390.132). I was working off the assumption that since 390.132 supported Xserver 1.20.x (and Xserver 1.21 is not imminent), Ubuntu would probably be able to support Nvidia 390 with kernel patches as long as the users stayed on 20.04.1 kernel and did not install HWE updates. But if Ubuntu 20.04(.1) is going to use kernel 5.4, kernel patches shouldn't be needed.

390 is supported until end of 2022, 340 is EOL now.

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/support-timeframes-for-unix-legacy-gpu-releases

[DanL]

Don't forget xserver updates, which break the video ABI.. and this time there might not be a separate HWE stack (with renamed binaries) for 20.04, so unless the xserver is frozen by the user, nvidia-340 would get uninstalled on upgrade. But it's still undecided if there's still going to be a separate stack or not.

I'm referring to the Nvidia 390 (not 340) legacy driver, which just had its last release (390.132). I was working off the assumption that since 390.132 supported Xserver 1.20.x (and Xserver 1.21 is not imminent), Ubuntu would probably be able to support Nvidia 390 with kernel patches as long as the users stayed on 20.04.1 kernel and did not install HWE updates. But if Ubuntu 20.04(.1) is going to use kernel 5.4, kernel patches shouldn't be needed.

[schmidtbag]

Not really... I know what I'm doing isn't what you're supposed to be doing, but it works for me personally and I don't act like Canonical should cater to me and my objectively incorrect use of their products. This way if my stupidity causes issues, it won't affect any other users who might do the same without understanding of how wrongheaded it is or the same ability to fix it themselves.

Then what do you make of their non-LTS releases?

Again, an LTS release shouldn't have a cutting-edge repo as it goes directly against what it's supposed to do. Your slight annoyance over 5 minutes of additional work simply pales in comparison to the hassles caused to other less technically inclined people who otherwise wouldn't do this and end up encountering completely avoidable issues because of it.

How about re-read what I wrote? Look, I know you're set out to disagree with me no matter what, but it's blinding your reading comprehension.

Pointing out that having short term support components in an LTS release is stupid as it undermines what an LTS release is meant for is not "something subjective", it's pointing out the obvious. You're not ignorant to how wrongheaded it would be for Canonical to undermine their LTS releases like this, yet you still keep complaining about them not doing it. You get 3 our of every 4 releases to suit your use case, yet you still chose to complain about that one that doesn't not doing so.

I don't know how many times I have to get it through your dense head that I don't think Canonical should undermine their LTS releases with cutting edge software. It's as though having a separate cutting-edge repo maintained in parallel is an impossible concept for you.
I also don't get how you're not understanding the problem at hand for those who depend on the non-LTS releases. Ubuntu isn't some random off-shoot distro and it's not built for experienced Linux users; millions of people use it. Consistency and options matter more for Ubuntu than most distros. Most sensible people would understand that if 25% of the releases don't follow the same stability pattern with no alternate repo, that can be frustrating.
The average Ubuntu user isn't going to understand how or why to add something like a PPA. Just because you an I can do it, doesn't meant that's a good approach.

I really don't understand why you can't wrap your head around the idea of an alternate/secondary repo.

Well why do you keep complaining then? Any sensible person would conclude that it's a stupid thing to be annoyed about and shut up. It's like how as a kid I used to get annoyed by how people who didn't speak Swedish or other Scandinavian languages would mangle the pronunciation of my name, even having my Finnish speaking friends call me the Finnish translation of my name. However as I grew older I just stopped caring about people mangling the pronunciation of my name.

Because it's not anywhere near of a big deal as you are making it seem. You're blowing my annoyance so far out of proportion while being deliberately ignorant and obtuse about the reasoning. Based on your example, it's clear to me that you wouldn't just walk away from someone ridiculing you either.
On an annoyance scale of 1-10 with 10 being "intolerable", this LTS release is a 2. It's annoying enough to make a comment about it, which I did and is all I intended to do. You're the one who escalated the situation.

[JMB9]

This IS REALLY BAD News.
First of the Ubuntu LTS has never used a so old kernel in its existence (it would have been possible to even use 5.6 - which would be a wise decision!).
Second I made a lot of jokes about long term stability kernels were never suited for the desktop and thus were (typically) not used by Ubuntu - also true for LTS releases.
Third - there is an enormous pressure for HW enablement. Seeing what is now going in 5.6 about Navi I feel really uncomfortable if aging 5.4 is the kernel.
It appears stupid to me that WireGuard is ported back from 2 kernels in future ... while the HW settings are not used.
And no, it is no option to update a kernel - the decisive point is having a working boot image for latest HW so you can point friends to use them.
So using Navi 14 or Navi 12 may require waiting for Ubuntu 20.10 (with 20.04.2 a good time thereafter providing this HWE stack - ridiculously to even give that as a workaround) or Canonical will not only port WireGuard and all the things around it (a mess: 5.5 and 5.6 parts needed!) but also AMD HW stuff from two kernels apart - what would be the income - this beast can never be supported in a reasonable manner like Linux 5.6 would have been.
I would understand to provide the 5.4 as default on servers - but for Boot Images on the desktop?
So from my point of view I would be most interested in the question if Navi 14+12 boots and works without problems with the 20.04 boot images - and if such an old kernel is used - which never was done before on Ubuntu LTS - what about Mesa? Will they at least use 20.0 ??? And is this fully possible with the aging 5.4 kernel of 11/2019 ???
The good point of Ubuntu was always having the current HW stack kernel+mesa+X.org and building it on the rock solid and enormous Debian distribution.
This seem to me like abandoning the desktop like they did with phones ... and would fit to the unthinkingly 1st announcement about dropping 32 bit support altogether (without talking to there partners).
Seems that a lot of wrong decisions are currently made ... I would rather like to see a prosper Ubuntu environment which is really important on the desktop.
5.4 Kernel doesn't make the job - as was clearly stated here on Phoronix about first Navi 14 test.
Has this situation changed? Was there a backport action to mainline for HW enablement which changed the situation?
And it is all about a working boot image ... otherwise people can not try Linux on such HW and it would really problematic to test new HW for Linux.
Linux is easy for beginners - but not if changing basic components to get it running on current HW is involved.
AMD is slow concerning drivers - but if 20.04 LTS does not cope with it ... could the gaming industry still rely on saying it is compatible with Ubuntu 20.04 if AMD cards don't work there or just in a way that it will force a lot of support tickets??? Or will they have to say Ubuntu 20.04.2 and newer?
I really see big trouble ahead!

[L_A_G]

So wait 6 months for my laptop to become semi-usable? People who use Ubuntu, are usually non-tech savvy users, and they're going to install on whatever consumer hardware they have, including recent releases. Which means for machines with Ryzen CPUs and AMD GPUs, they don't have hardware accelerated graphics for months, which makes it a huge issue.

If you're not tech savvy enough to swap out the kernel, which as I said takes 5 minutes after a quick Google search, you probably shouldn't be installing any OS that the device didn't ship with pre-installed. You don't even need to go into the terminal as there are entirely GUI-based and very simple to use tools to get that done.

There is NO justification for using old software - it's NOT anymore stable than new releases, no matter how many delusional people keep repeating that stupid idea. The only people who need LTS releases, are IT workers in an organization because they have to manage 10-1,000,000 computers, people maintaining servers (especially the ones running stock exchanges, hospitals, cities etc.)

Calm down... We're not talking about using years old kernels here, we're talking about the latest LTS kernel, which is constantly maintained and particularly the derivatives Canonical use tend to get non-standard additions from newer kernels in addition to moving to completely new kernel versions post-launch.

I'm planning to use Ubuntu LTS myself, but only as a server, so that I don't have to maintain it as much and it'll keep running, On normal machines where I sit and use GUIs, web browsers etc. I'm definitely not going to use some old, outdated software.

Even you have to admit that there is a very clear use case for these 1 out of every 4 releases that Canonical puts out. We're not talking about a massive company here that can afford to put out and maintain loads of LTS and non-LTS releases at the same time. Hell, that just sounds like an entitled child complaining about how it's not enough that 3/4 of releases cater to your desire for features over stability.

Also, your use of a Debian-based distro primarily made for desktop use on servers rather than Debian itself does make me question your proficiency somewhat.

[L_A_G]

Doesn't that contradict what you were saying about installing out-of-repo kernels?

Not really... I know what I'm doing isn't what you're supposed to be doing, but it works for me personally and I don't act like Canonical should cater to me and my objectively incorrect use of their products. This way if my stupidity causes issues, it won't affect any other users who might do the same without understanding of how wrongheaded it is or the same ability to fix it themselves.

Which, despite what you think, is something I also agree with. LTS should be stable, not cutting-edge. But again: it's annoying when every other Ubuntu release has no cutting-edge repo.

Again, an LTS release shouldn't have a cutting-edge repo as it goes directly against what it's supposed to do. Your slight annoyance over 5 minutes of additional work simply pales in comparison to the hassles caused to other less technically inclined people who otherwise wouldn't do this and end up encountering completely avoidable issues because of it.

The semantics here are irrelevant. The point is you stated something subjective because you are choosing to take the willfully-ignorant and/or pessimistic approach to this discussion, and then judging me as a result.

Pointing out that having short term support components in an LTS release is stupid as it undermines what an LTS release is meant for is not "something subjective", it's pointing out the obvious. You're not ignorant to how wrongheaded it would be for Canonical to undermine their LTS releases like this, yet you still keep complaining about them not doing it. You get 3 our of every 4 releases to suit your use case, yet you still chose to complain about that one that doesn't not doing so.

That's just... stupid!

I agree... nowhere did I say otherwise...

Well why do you keep complaining then? Any sensible person would conclude that it's a stupid thing to be annoyed about and shut up. It's like how as a kid I used to get annoyed by how people who didn't speak Swedish or other Scandinavian languages would mangle the pronunciation of my name, even having my Finnish speaking friends call me the Finnish translation of my name. However as I grew older I just stopped caring about people mangling the pronunciation of my name.

all you need to do is wait for the next Ubuntu distro until you get a non-LTS one

So wait 6 months for my laptop to become semi-usable? People who use Ubuntu, are usually non-tech savvy users, and they're going to install on whatever consumer hardware they have, including recent releases. Which means for machines with Ryzen CPUs and AMD GPUs, they don't have hardware accelerated graphics for months, which makes it a huge issue.

There is NO justification for using old software - it's NOT anymore stable than new releases, no matter how many delusional people keep repeating that stupid idea. The only people who need LTS releases, are IT workers in an organization because they have to manage 10-1,000,000 computers, people maintaining servers (especially the ones running stock exchanges, hospitals, cities etc.)

Pretty much no one else.

I'm planning to use Ubuntu LTS myself, but only as a server, so that I don't have to maintain it as much and it'll keep running, On normal machines where I sit and use GUIs, web browsers etc. I'm definitely not going to use some old, outdated software.