On Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:27:21 -0500
"Gino!" <ginolovesyou@gmail.com> wrote:

> Firstly thanks for all your great responses...
> 
> On 02/25/2013 09:26 AM, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 01:05:01AM -0500, Gino! wrote:
> >> So, it seems like gentoo-sources loves EOL kernels..
> >> can anybody tell me why this is, it seems like that would be a bad
> >> thing... I always move up to the latest amd64 stable, but 3.7.9 is
> >> super buggy (nvidia and aufs3 complain among others)
> > 
> > What is "super buggy" about 3.7.9?  Have you reported this anywhere?
> > 
> I as a stable packages only, style gentoo user have an (perhaps
> unrealistic), expectation that kernels that go stable have some
> vetting process with all other stable packages, and I can expect no
> failed interactions between things.. this is not yet true with
> 3.7.9...

This makes the stabilization process unnecessary long; again, it's the
responsibility of other packages to work with the kernel, not the other
way around. We have waited long enough (several 3.7 versions) for those
packages to be patched; and besides that we had to wait for nouveau to
somewhat become more reliable as well, since they did a major refactor
in early 3.7 that broke it for some people.

Stabilizing more kernel versions but making sure they work together with
other packages is impossible with the limited kernel team we currently
have, remember that this has been just mpagano for a while [1] and that
out of everyone that responded [2] nobody else really stayed around.

 [1]: http://www.mpagano.com/blog/?p=165
 [2]: http://www.mpagano.com/blog/?p=167

> >> although I would feel allot more comfortable with something like
> >> 3.4.33!! but its at 3.4.9...
> >>
> >> Do you gentoo-sources folks recommend a particular release for
> >> Long Term Stable ongoing support???
> > 
> > If you have to have something like this, then use the versions that
> > upstream is saying is going to be "long term", meaning the 3.0 or
> > 3.4 releases.  But note that new hardware will not work on these
> > releases, so you will be out of luck if you have really modern
> > hardware, sorry.
> > 
> >> Thats the one i want to use.
> > 
> > Why?  What does something like this buy you in a rolling-release
> > distro like Gentoo?
> I would prefer to not constantly use new kernel implementations,
> sometimes new features come out, and I may need some old package, that
> depends on the older feature.. I would like for it to operate
> smoothly.. my most recent example of this would be changes to how
> wireless drivers are implemented,
> the new stuff is great but if my old packages don't work, its no good
> for me.
> I would like an (*slightly) older kernel that maintains security
> patches and maintenance repairs for a long period of time..

Then following 3.4 is the way to go, I'll hear for stabilization...


With kind regards,

Tom Wijsman (TomWij)
Gentoo Developer

E-mail address  : TomWij@gentoo.org
GPG Public Key  : 6D34E57D
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2  ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D