Ubuntu Prepping Its 16.04 "Rolling HWE Kernel"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu Prepping Its 16.04 "Rolling HWE Kernel"

Similar to past Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) releases, Ubuntu 16.04.2 and beyond will feature hardware enablement kernels back-ported from newer Ubuntu releases in order to allow new hardware to work on these older LTS releases, but now the Xenial Xerus is switching to a concept of a "rolling HWE kernel."..

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Rolling-HWE-Kernels

[ernstp]

So what about the X stack... ?

[andrei_me]

So it will update the kernel to a major release instead a point release when one does an apt-get upgrade?

[bridgman]

So what about the X stack... ?

The documentation uses "kernel" and "stack" interchangeably but AFAICS the change only affects the kernel. So you would get newer kernels but X stack would remain unchanged unless you add a third party PPA.

The doc doesn't mention whether users will be forced to 16.04.5 X stack as well in order to maintain support but I believe that was already the case before this announcement.

At first glance this seems like a sensible change. Canonical still offers a "freeze the kernel for 5 years" option if users pick up a server image using the GA kernel, but anyone picking up an image with HWS kernel will automatically pick up subsequent HWS kernels as well.

[xception]

Michael, Lately there's been this trend on phoronix to use acronyms without explaining them, I would really want you to re-start stating what each acronym means at least once in the article so I don't have to google it every time. I'm interested in multiple domains so my google results get jumbled up and sometimes I run into the wrong acronym and have to figure out how to ask google the right question to get the answer I want which eats up a lot of my time.
Thanks.

[dungeon]

Michael, Lately there's been this trend on phoronix to use acronyms without explaining them, I would really want you to re-start stating what each acronym means at least once in the article so I don't have to google it every time. I'm interested in multiple domains so my google results get jumbled up and sometimes I run into the wrong acronym and have to figure out how to ask google the right question to get the answer I want which eats up a lot of my time.
Thanks.

I guess you ask about GA and HWE kernels:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/RollingLTSEnablementStack#ga-16.04

It is basically, stock and backport kernels

[darius]

so they've started offering kernel updates on LTS and no mesa/x stack, this is pretty ridiculous.

[bridgman]

I don't think so... my impression from the doc was that you can still manually upgrade to the next LTS release to get X stack, it's just that HWE kernels will come automatically.

Then again it was written from the kernel team's POV so there may be X stack upgrades as well.

[dungeon]

so they've started offering kernel updates on LTS and no mesa/x stack, this is pretty ridiculous.

It is same server 1.18.4 in 16.04 and 16.10 already:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/yakkety-updates/xserver-xorg-core

So you won't get 1.19 stack anyway there Maybe 3 months after 17.04 they would reconsider it

[darius]

well my problem actually regards more mesa, honestly all the PPA's available are either built form git master, otherwise old but with nine enable or updated stable but built on old llvm with no nine support which as by now leaves me with the option of switching distro or learning to build mesa...