Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Will Likely Ship With Linux 4.15

[Charlie68]

I understand that the 4.15 kernel for the desktop user is better, but Ubuntu is also used in the business environment where getting a Lts kernel is definitely the best choice.

[Space Beer]

IMHO, it's not that important. They'll update kernel anyway in some 18.04.x version, maybe to the next longterm release. E.g. 16.04 was shipped with 4.4 which is longterm kernel, but updated recently to 4.10 which is not.

[bug77]

A desktop oriented distro would choose 4.15 or even 4.16. A server oriented distro would choose 4.14 because it has LTS. Is Ubuntu desktop or server oriented? Is it both? Or neither one?

Traditionally, nothing that's not released by March (or even February?) makes it into the April release. The same goes for October releases.
They don't pick numbers, they pick what's ready in time for integration and testing. And backport important stuff as it becomes available. That's Ubuntu's thing.

[nils_]

I understand that the 4.15 kernel for the desktop user is better, but Ubuntu is also used in the business environment where getting a Lts kernel is definitely the best choice.

Why? Unless you're running 3rd party modules I don't see the harm in running a newer version, but there is potential for upside.

[Jumbotron]

In a word....YAY ! 4.15 is a substantial increase over 4.14 and will have enough time to iron out those things which need to be ironed out before April. Vega support being a BIG one to have in 4.15 over 4.14. Hard not to get over excited about Ubuntu 18.04 at this point. Renewed, refreshed, refocused.....this is the start of a new Ubuntu in many ways. Will keep my powder dry until then....but excitement building for sure.

[dh04000]

IMHO, it's not that important. They'll update kernel anyway in some 18.04.x version, maybe to the next longterm release. E.g. 16.04 was shipped with 4.4 which is longterm kernel, but updated recently to 4.10 which is not.

+1

I have no idea either why they're debating kernel versions either. HWE always changes it, and that's a good thing.

[dh04000]

In a word....YAY ! 4.15 is a substantial increase over 4.14 and will have enough time to iron out those things which need to be ironed out before April. Vega support being a BIG one to have in 4.15 over 4.14. Hard not to get over excited about Ubuntu 18.04 at this point. Renewed, refreshed, refocused.....this is the start of a new Ubuntu in many ways. Will keep my powder dry until then....but excitement building for sure.

Nice to see some positive attitudes on here for once. Your right, the 18.04 LTS release is shaping up to be very exciting.

[DarkFoss]

I don't see any downside to this especially on the server side. Better support out of the box for Epyc Threadripper Vega vs a massive undertaking backporting as much change as possible into the 4.14. Seems to me that having 4.15 as a base would be a major advantage instead of a hinderence. I'm sure any needed 3rd party modules will get the necessary
adjustments especially now that it's been announced so early.

[grok]

It does make sense to run a stable kernel. And from maintaining perspective it does make sense to run a LTS kernel. HWE or not, the original kernel is supported until the EOL. Therefore the kernel need to be patched / patches nerd to be backported if the kernel does not get official updates.

By the way, why was kernel 2.6.x around for ages? Did they change their release versioning at that time?

Yes the way they were doing releases didn't fit with the versioning well anymore. Things were staying at 2.6.x even with major changes or new features, so they eventually renamed 2.6.x to 3.x basically. For example, Linux 3.10 might have been called 2.6.50. We could have stayed under "2.6.x" further still and be nearing 2.6.70.
If I recall correctly, Linux 4.x basically meant "you can now upgrade the kernel on a server without rebooting" (perhaps your distro, tooling and use case have to support that and perhaps you could do it earlier with special patches and tooling. But we're in an era where this ought to work)

Who knows, we might stick to 4.x for ages to come, unless there is a reason for a "celebratory" 5.0 release.

[grok]

I have my reasons to keep Ubuntu. I've been to Debian. And Arch. And Manjaro. And pretty much any distro you can name. Ultimately, since I need CUDA to work as intended and Ubuntu is an officially supported distro for it, I chose to keep it. As much as I like Linux I also like sane defaults and getting stuff working without much effort as I have almost no spare time whatsoever.
Plus, I'm on a 1080p 14" laptop. Unity is extremely nice with fractional scaling. Til GNOME gets it working as well as it does in Unity I'll just have to keep it.



I didn't know about that. They're taking quite a while to support Kaby Lake properly then. It even seems it works "ok" up to where I can test with a live media but it still complains about missing firmware.

So, maybe you'll keep using Unity 7 on newer Ubuntu?
Perhaps that'll be a good niche (ironically becoming a geek's desktop, for 1080p laptops). You wouldn't have to move to Windows 10 + WSL at least. Might be no big deal, if minimal bug fixes and maintenance carry it to 18.04 LTS.

Regarding the Kaby Lake firmware I guess that was an issue of timing. They could have pushed not well tested firmware perhaps. Somewhat risky if buggy and then users don't update the scary linux firmware package.
Also a small reason why some of us only use the "2D" desktops.