[gentoo-user] Re: Slightly corrupted file systems when resuming from hibernation

[Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>]

On 2024-04-17, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com> wrote:

>> > But, to get back to the beginning of this discussion: if there is a
>> > risk that my aging hardware possibly can less and less cope with
>> > newer and newer kernels, should I put something like
>> > 
>> >    >=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.7.0
>> > 
>> > into file "package.mask" to stay with "longterm" 6.6.* kernels?
>> 
>> Yes: if you want to avoid getting upgraded to 6.8 when it gets
>> kernel.org "longterm" status and gentoo-sources "stable" status, then
>> a statement like that in in package.mask will keep you on
>> gentoo-sources 6.6 kernels (which are "longterm" on kernel.org).

> I am not sure the assumption "... aging hardware possibly can less and less 
> cope with newer and newer kernels" is correct.

Good point. My "yes" was in response to a question of the form "if X
is true, should I do Y".  I did not attempt to address the likelyhood
that X was actually ture, only whether Y was appropriate if X was
true.

> As already mentioned newer kernels have both security and bug fixes.
> As long as you stick with stable gentoo-sources you'll have these in
> your system.  Later kernels also come with additional kernel drivers
> for new(er) hardware.  You may not need/want these drivers if you do
> not run the latest hardware. Using 'make oldconfig' allows you to
> exclude such new drivers, but include new security options and/or
> functionality as desired.
>
> It can happen for new code to introduce some software regression.

The usual worries with running newer kernels on older hardware are:

 1) Performance degradation when upgrading kernels on older hardware.

    On one embedded project I work with we're still running a 2.6
    kernel because network throughput drops by 25-30% when we upgrade
    to 3.x kernels. There's nothing "wrong" with those 3.x kernels,
    they're just bigger and significantly slower.  [Even when built
    with a config that's as identical to the 2.6 kernels as possible.]

 2) Lack of support for old hardware when running a newer kernels.

    I used to run into this when running nvidia-drivers.
    Gentoo-sources would mark a new kernel stable, but my video board
    would not be supported by nvidia-drivers versions that were
    supported for that new stable kernel.  I would mask newer kernels
    until and run older "longterm" kernels as long as I could. I would
    evenually be forced to buy a new video card. After going through
    that cycle a couple times, I swore off NVidia video cards and
    life's been much eaiser since.