Stable kernel updates for Saturday

[Posted July 27, 2024 by corbet]

The 6.10.2, 6.9.12, 6.6.43, 6.1.102, 5.15.164, 5.10.223, 5.4.281, and 4.19.319 stable kernel updates have all been released; each contains a relatively small set of important fixes, at least one of which appears to close a minor security hole.

6.9.12 marked as EOL on The Linux Kernel Archive

Posted Jul 29, 2024 12:58 UTC (Mon) by JMB (guest, #74439) [Link] (3 responses)

The freshly released kernel 6.9.12 is now marked as End of Life at "The Linux Kernel Archives"
while there was not the usual info with this final release note and mainline will thus follow
6.10.2 which is quite early to be used ... and 6.11-rc1 just released.

6.9.12 marked as EOL on The Linux Kernel Archive

Posted Jul 29, 2024 17:51 UTC (Mon) by Ranguvar (subscriber, #56734) [Link]

It also appears stable kernels don't yet have the VFS bugfix from 6.11, and so 6.9.x may miss it entirely.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.11-VFS-Fix-5-Year-Bug

6.9.12 marked as EOL on The Linux Kernel Archive

Posted Jul 29, 2024 22:47 UTC (Mon) by intelfx (subscriber, #130118) [Link] (1 responses)

> mainline will thus follow 6.10.2 which is quite early to be used

Huh? According to the mainline release process, a kernel stops being "early to be used" exactly at the .0 release.

If you need something else, then you should be using LTS branches (either the community-maintained ones, or any of the commercial offerings).

6.9.12 marked as EOL on The Linux Kernel Archive

Posted Jul 30, 2024 1:42 UTC (Tue) by set (guest, #4788) [Link]

I would not quite characterize it that way. I think the .0 release occurs when the *developers are not seeing any issues that would prevent launching into the next -rc round. For *users, which kernel is appropriate to upgrade to will range from "none" to LTS to ".0" depending on their requirements and temperment. Because it seems clear that until after the .0 release, the kernel is almost entirely tested by developers, who cannot possibly approach the vast array of hardware combinations and uses encountered by users in the wild.