The treadmill is real [LWN.net]

The treadmill is real

Posted Aug 10, 2026 3:48 UTC (Mon) by yodermk (guest, #3803)
In reply to: The treadmill is real by gray_-_wolf
Parent article: Four weekend stable kernel updates

Yeah but in virtually all cases, I think it's fine to install and reboot on your own schedule. Unless you have potentially hostile local users or running some untrusted software, then it might be a bit more urgent.

How many people actually update production systems straight from the upstream anyway? As opposed to just following your distribution updates and using their kernels.

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The treadmill is real

Posted Aug 12, 2026 0:37 UTC (Wed) by richarson (subscriber, #74226) [Link]

From my experience with AlmaLinux and Ubuntu (I work for a web hosting company), there's not much difference tracking upstream or distro kernels.
The new kernels just keep coming and we have to update and reboot, or risk our users and/or systems.

For shared hosting we have kernelcare which fortunately helps us avoid some reboots, or at least delay them.
For the rest of our infra, most of it is using some sort of HA so rolling upgrades and reboot without downtime is possible.

YMMV