This morning when I went to update my 20.04 system (using Software Update), among the updates was a deletion of my 18.04, but still supported kernel. (This is 4.15.) Since 4.15 boots nicely on my 5k iMac, but the latest kernel (5.4) doesn't, I unchecked the option to delete the 4.15 kernel. This deletion default is new; it hadn't come up on system updates until today. This concerns me because I might accidentally let the deletion occur. Also, I had been thinking about deleting the new kernel so that the default boot would be the 4.15. Is there some way I can at least get Software Update to stop offering to delete the 4.15 kernel?
Well I got an answer of sorts from the Ubuntu forums. It seems that if I delete the 5.4 kernel, I won't be asked to delete the 4.15 kernel. However, there seems to be some question as to whether the 4.15 kernel is actually supported in Ubuntu 20.04, even though Canonical is supporting the 4.15 kernel for three more years in Ubuntu 18.04. If it isn't supported in 20.04, I wouldn't be getting security updates for that kernel, which would put me at risk. Perhaps all this means is I have to find another Canonical source for the updated debs and install them myself?
Because the 4.15 kernel still has three more years, it's not going to 'expire' and you will continue to get security updates for it. That kernel is also an LTS kernel which means it will be supported and you will get updates. At least that's my understanding but you can just try it and you fill out fairly soon since kernel updates are released every few months or more often. Depends on when they find vulnerabilities or bugs.
Since they're continuing to support the 4.x kernel series, it's easy for them to give you the security updates, too, so I imagine they will. If it wasn't going to be supported, they wouldn't let you keep it. They'd force you upgrade.
Linux Mint, btw, has a selector in the Update Manager that lets you choose from a wide range of kernels which will continue to be updated, or at least until it tells you it's no longer supported. And you can switch between on boot. I never played with the feature but it's there. I'm still using a 4.x series kernel on the PLUG server.
I hope you're right, Jason, but if you're not, there is always Linux Mint. I'm keeping Mint 19.3 on a partition. They will be updating it soon based on Ubuntu 20.20, but that's OK. When they updated it last, I got rid of the newest kernel that didn't work, and I have been getting regular kernel updates on 4.14. I don't know why Ubuntu would do this differently.
I have one other fallback on Ubuntu - the proprietary AMD drivers. I tried installing the current ones but it didn't work. However, they haven't issued a version yet for 20.04.
Quote from: fox on April 20, 2020, 07:46:46 PM
I hope you're right, Jason, but if you're not, there is always Linux Mint. I'm keeping Mint 19.3 on a partition. They will be updating it soon based on Ubuntu 20.20, but that's OK. When they updated it last, I got rid of the newest kernel that didn't work, and I have been getting regular kernel updates on 4.14. I don't know why Ubuntu would do this differently.
I have one other fallback on Ubuntu - the proprietary AMD drivers. I tried installing the current ones but it didn't work. However, they haven't issued a version yet for 20.04.
I would imagine if it wasn't getting updates, you could just switch back to the newer one, no?
Painful! Two minute boot, 2 minute shutdown, 2 minute wake from sleep!
Is that with the 4.15 kernel or the new 5.x series?
The 5x series. Boot time is less than 25 seconds to a working desktop with 4.15! Wake-up from sleep is less than 10 seconds and shut-down is about 20 seconds when running 4.15. Quite a difference!
The big nasty is the wake-up from sleep. I say that because I only boot and shut down once a day and I can do something else during boot and leave it to shut down on its own. But I want the computer to sleep when I'm not actively using it, and I'm not going to wait 2 minutes for it to wake up.
I never thought of this upgrade problem with the older 4.15 kernel until a moderator in the Ubuntu "Development" forum mentioned this in response to my post. I don't want to use a distro that is not getting security updates and I don't know whether he is right or not. I do know that Linux Mint 19.3, which is based on Ubuntu 18.04, is using a higher numbered version of the 4.15 kernel than Ubuntu is (at least Ubuntu 20.04). Is that because they are maintaining that kernel while Ubuntu 20.04 won't be? In the case of Mint, it offered to upgrade to a newer kernel when I upgraded Mint to 19.1 or 19.2, but I was able to remove it (boot problem again) and now I'm only offered updates to the 4.15 kernel. But Mint will soon be upgrading and will be based on Ubuntu 20.04. I assume that at that point, they will no longer be maintaining the 4.15 kernel either.
This problem is forcing me to think about whether I want to use my relatively new and powerful iMac as a Linux computer at all.
Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 08:58:38 AM
The big nasty is the wake-up from sleep. I say that because I only boot and shut down once a day and I can do something else during boot and leave it to shut down on its own. But I want the computer to sleep when I'm not actively using it, and I'm not going to wait 2 minutes for it to wake up.
Is it in sleep mode? Or hibernation?
Hibernation will always take longer because it has to read the disk back into memory, so however much memory you were using has to be read from the HDD or SSD.
I don't bother with sleep or hibernation in Linux. I find it never works the way I want it to and hibernation takes too long. The only thing I'd need to remember the state of is the browser tabs that are open and that can be done by changing a setting in the browser or saving all tabs into a bookmark folder. Hibernation doesn't waste energy at least, at least I don't think it does but if it does it's very little. It might still keep the hard drive powered on so it's ready to go on exit from hiberation. But much less than sleep which keeps power to the RAM and I think the processor goes into a low-power mode as well as the HDD or SDD. Unless you really have to have the computer ready in faster than 30 seconds (the boot time you mentioned), you shouldn't use sleep. If it is 30 seconds. You mentioned the 2 minutes again after just saying that that you had cut down the boot time. In any case, using sleep wears down the battery and wastes energy. I just mention that to you since you're an environment professor emeritus. :)
QuoteI never thought of this upgrade problem with the older 4.15 kernel until a moderator in the Ubuntu "Development" forum mentioned this in response to my post. I don't want to use a distro that is not getting security updates and I don't know whether he is right or not.
Am I missing something here? What did he/she say?
QuoteI do know that Linux Mint 19.3, which is based on Ubuntu 18.04, is using a higher numbered version of the 4.15 kernel than Ubuntu is (at least Ubuntu 20.04). Is that because they are maintaining that kernel while Ubuntu 20.04 won't be?
They're not maintaining it. They're just using the generic kernel and probably configuring the way they want, same as Ubuntu would be. Neither of them "maintain" the kernel as such. I mean that they're not actively contributing it unless a developer from one of those is actually on the kernel team. Linux Mint 20 will be using the 5.x kernel series. However, you can use older kernels just by accessing the menu in Update Manager and choosing one or more.
Why do you think that Linux Mint won't be supporting the 4.x kernel after it is based on Ubuntu 20.04? The 4.x kernel will continue to be updated because 18.04 uses it. And 18.04 doesn't reach end-of-life until 2023.
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 21, 2020, 11:05:28 AM
Is it in sleep mode? Or hibernation?
Hibernation will always take longer because it has to read the disk back into memory, so however much memory you were using has to be read from the HDD or SSD.
I don't bother with sleep or hibernation in Linux. I find it never works the way I want it to and hibernation takes too long. The only thing I'd need to remember the state of is the browser tabs that are open and that can be done by changing a setting in the browser or saving all tabs into a bookmark folder. Hibernation doesn't waste energy at least, at least I don't think it does but if it does it's very little. It might still keep the hard drive powered on so it's ready to go on exit from hiberation. But much less than sleep which keeps power to the RAM and I think the processor goes into a low-power mode as well as the HDD or SDD. Unless you really have to have the computer ready in faster than 30 seconds (the boot time you mentioned), you shouldn't use sleep. If it is 30 seconds. You mentioned the 2 minutes again after just saying that that you had cut down the boot time. In any case, using sleep wears down the battery and wastes energy. I just mention that to you since you're an environment professor emeritus. :)
I actually don't know. Looking at my Power Saving settings, automatic suspend is off, and the screen is set to go blank in 10 minutes if no input. I don't know what it's doing when it goes blank, but when I leave the computer and revive the blank screen later, it takes forever. With kernel 4.15, it "wakes up" almost instantly as soon as I press a key and type in my password.
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 21, 2020, 11:05:28 AM
Am I missing something here? What did he/she say?
"The 4.15 kernel series is not supported on 20.04.
(It runs? Sure. Is it available to install from the official repositories? I don't think so, maybe. But it is definitely not a supported kernel.)"
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 21, 2020, 11:05:28 AM
Why do you think that Linux Mint won't be supporting the 4.x kernel after it is based on Ubuntu 20.04? The 4.x kernel will continue to be updated because 18.04 uses it. And 18.04 doesn't reach end-of-life until 2023.
Because I will update to Mint 20 once it becomes available and that will be based on Ubuntu 20.04. Sure I can stay on 19.3 for awhile and the 4.15 kernel would be maintained. I can do the same by staying on Ubuntu 18.04. But neither is a good option to me.
Incidentally, the choice of staying with the 4.15 kernel in Ubuntu 20.04 has apparently been taken out of my hands. After an update yesterday, when I went to boot, the 4.15 kernel wasn't an option. When I looked for 4.15 on Synaptic, the linux-image was listed unchecked, but wouldn't install. When I tried, I got the message: "Package linux-image-4.15.0-72-generic has no available version, but exists in the database.
This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and never uploaded, has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents of sources.list".
When I looked at the repositories in Software and Updates, there were several Bionic Beaver (18.04) repositories listed, but all were unchecked, and all were source code. None of the Ubuntu Bionic binary repositories were even listed.
Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 11:19:52 AM
"The 4.15 kernel series is not supported on 20.04.
(It runs? Sure. Is it available to install from the official repositories? I don't think so, maybe. But it is definitely not a supported kernel.)"
What is his position or his experience with Ubuntu? Is he a developer, a maintainer of Ubuntu or just a moderator. I say "just" which kind of mean but I'm just a moderator and member of PLUG, too. But I ask because maybe he's wrong. If you use LM instead, the 19.x series is supported until 2022, I believe, at least. And it will have the 4.x series. But honestly, Fox, don't worry so much. Just keep the kernel you like and see what happens.
Since I use 4.x series on the PLUG server, I can tell you if I see updates and let you know. I'll also check to see if it's the same version number you're using exactly. If you don't see updates when I do then you know it's not being updated.
It's not like there's any rush, right? Even 19.10 is supported for 9 months so you could regress. You can still get newer versions of the programs you are specifically interested via snaps or repositories. Or get LM and you can continue using the 19.x version even when LM 20 comes out.
Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 11:27:12 AM
Incidentally, the choice of staying with the 4.15 kernel in Ubuntu 20.04 has apparently been taken out of my hands. After an update yesterday, when I went to boot, the 4.15 kernel wasn't an option.
Okay, that's weird. You might have to move to LM then. I know for a fact that you can have multiple kernel versions on it at the same time.
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 21, 2020, 02:02:00 PM
Okay, that's weird. You might have to move to LM then. I know for a fact that you can have multiple kernel versions on it at the same time.
It is weird, and it wasn't replicated in a replicate partition I made on the same computer. But in that case I may have been more careful. After I updated the 5.4 kernel in that partition, I deleted the older 5.4 kernel before rebooting. I don't know if it was because of this action that the 4.15 kernel stayed around, or maybe I accidentally did an autoremove in the other partition without thinking.
So now another mystery. I have two 20.04 partitions on the same computer, one with and one without the 4.15 kernel. I opened up the Software and Updates application, expecting to find a repo in the one with the 4.15 kernel that isn't in the other partition. Nope; at least it wasn't obvious if there is one. And no Ubuntu 18.04 repos are enabled as far as I can tell. So why when I search "4.15.0-" in Synaptic do I come up with all these 4.15 kernel files, including a bunch of 4.15.0-x versions? In both partitions! Where are they coming from? Is there a way I can find out?
If you take the example of the 20.04 partition with 4.15 kernel no longer an option, I see the listing in Synaptic for the linux image but I can't reinstall it. Where would I get that from if I want to put it back? And wherever that is, wouldn't they have an updated version when this kernel gets its next security update?
Too many questions and not enough answers. So here is another one for you. In my situation, would you run the 4.15 kernel if you knew it wasn't being updated? :-\
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 21, 2020, 02:00:02 PM
It's not like there's any rush, right? Even 19.10 is supported for 9 months so you could regress. You can still get newer versions of the programs you are specifically interested via snaps or repositories. Or get LM and you can continue using the 19.x version even when LM 20 comes out.
Yes there is a rush, partly because I'm doing a change involving 3 computers. The newest iMac came from school; no reason to have it there anymore. We have a very old iMac (20", 2009) in the "family computer" spot. It doesn't support the last four MacOS versions, although I have used a patch to allow it to update to the three year old version (MacOS High Sierra), which is still supported by Apple). I want to replace it with either the newest iMac that came from school or the one I am now using as a Linux box (2011 27" iMac) - my preference is the latter. The 2011 isn't having the same kernel problems as the newer one, probably because it's a lower dpi resolution (2560 x 1440). Its only problem with Linux is that the brightness controls don't work, but the brightness it's using is fine. I prefer the latest and greatest as my regular computer, but if it isn't secure, I'm better off to keep using the one I am now. Making any switch with the family computer is time-consuming, and I would hate to do it once and then have to repeat it once the Linux situation changes.
Staying with Ubuntu 19.10 isn't a reasonable option. First, it only gets three more months of support. Second, it doesn't run well on the 2015 iMac anyway (5.3 kernel), and the newest Ubuntu LTS runs as well or better than 19.10 on the 2011 iMac. Linux Mint 19.3 is a different, but unknown case. I'm assuming that the newer version will have some advances over 19.3, but I won't know until I try it. And I don't know if the new Mint version will continue to update the 4.15 kernel, or not. Yes I can run 19.3 perfectly on the 2015 iMac, but same goes for Ubuntu 18.04. But I would rather run Ubuntu 20.04 on the 2011 iMac than be forced to run 18.04 on the 2015.
Phew. Now I can take a breath!
Big problems? No. Maybe I have too much time on my hands. ;D
Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 02:48:38 PM
Staying with Ubuntu 19.10 isn't a reasonable option. First, it only gets three more months of support.
Ah, yes. I was thinking it was supported for 9 months but forget that it's already been 6 months.
I have further information from a post I made on the Linux Mint forums. I asked about maintenance of the 4.15 kernel on Mint's soon-to-be-coming version 20, based on Ubuntu 20.04. The reply was "unlikely" because kernel 4.15 isn't in the Ubuntu 20.04 repositories. So I really need a solution to this problem before I consider upgrading to Mint 20, if I were to do so on my 2015 iMac.
The other thing I discovered is that Ubuntu has a software package site (here) (https://packages.ubuntu.com/) where you can download packages in the respositories of all their main editions. I looked up the 4.15 kernel packages and can verify that they aren't in the 20.04 repositories. However they are in the 18.04 repositories, and can be downloaded as debs and installed. But here is the thing. There are 4.15.0-x generic versions where the x is numbered as high as 96. (The version I had in 20.04 was 72-generic.) Can I assume that the higher the number the more recent the security update, and that more will be added as the kernel continues to be patched? The reason I ask is because in my Ubuntu 18.04 partition, that number is only 37. So why aren't those higher numbers offered for my 18.04 installation when I check Software Update?
I'm not sure as to the answer to that question. Haven't trouble understanding all the stuff you're saying right now. Probably just been typing too much, here and on Facebook. I'l reply to it tomorrow when my mind is more clear. But I will say that the vanilla kernels at kernel.org (http://kernel.org) (which are different than how the distros package them) show that there are several 4.x versions that continue to be supported and are considered long-term. The FAQ tells you what that term means.
You did ask one question before which I forgot to answer.
QuoteToo many questions and not enough answers. So here is another one for you. In my situation, would you run the 4.15 kernel if you knew it wasn't being updated?
It depends. I'd keep track of kernel releases through a support forum and see if the patches are for security or bug fixes or both. And if it's a security patch, look up the CVE related to it. CVE is a database of vulnerabilities. The CVE# is a specific vulnerability and they advise you what to do and how serious the vulnerability is. Some aren't serious or don't apply to your situation. For example, if your computer, being a desktop, is not accessible for people to log in from the internet, remote exploits don't matter because they have to be able to login before they can use it. But that's a lot of work to look up patch releases. But if you do a search for kernel updates for ubuntu, there should be release notes for each update that tell you what each patch is fixing and it will have a CVE# if it's patching a vulnerability.
But it still would surprise me that they wouldn't continue to support the kernel with patches since 4.x is still being updated. I'm using 18.04 on the server and it has 4.15.0-91-generic. It's still being updated and through Ubuntu. So why would they not give the option to use the previous kernel and have it patched? It's the same darn thing. But I'll look at the rest of this post tomorrow.
Thanks, Jason. Very helpful, and I can now see a safe path to upgrading that doesn't look to involve a lot of extra work on my part. I look forward to your next post about this today.
Meanwhile, it looks like my bug report garnered some attention. I got an email today about it, asking me to test the newest upsteam kernel (5.7-rc2); it provides installation instructions. I'm going to try that this morning and report back.
Edit: 5.7-rc2 didn't work. It started out with the same slow boot and wouldn't let me past the login screen. When I put my password in and logged in, the screen just returned. I added these negative results to the bug report, and will hopefully hear back soon with another idea or more instructions to help them diagnose the bug. But I'm gratified that they are taking my report seriously.
Edit2: It was easy to find and install the 4.15 kernel modules that went missing, and I can now boot into that kernel again. My version is 4.15.0-72, and as Jason noted, 4.15.0-96 is available. I'll await advice as to whether I should upgrade to this, but in the meantime, I'm happy to know that I can, and that I will be able to securely operate with the 4.15 module until it is no longer supported in April 2023. But I'm still hoping for a fix of the current LTS kernel well before that.
Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 09:04:49 PM
Can I assume that the higher the number the more recent the security update, and that more will be added as the kernel continues to be patched? The reason I ask is because in my Ubuntu 18.04 partition, that number is only 37. So why aren't those higher numbers offered for my 18.04 installation when I check Software Update?
I think you already figured it out by now, but yes, the higher the number the newer the version. Not sure if it's a patch per se or just the distro version number. For example, I have version 5.3.0-46-generic on Kubuntu 19.10. The 46 part is the distro kernel release number. I figured that out from the official kernel pages which are where the original kernel developers hang out. All distros use their own kernel based on the kernels here. It says on this page (https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html) under 'Distribution Kernels' that everything after the dash (i.e. -) means it's a distro kernel which I infer to mean that it's that number is from the distro kernel guys.
As to your second question, I guess you figured it out since you mentioned it in Edit 2 to your post before this. I didn't see the -96 release previously on the server when I checked it a few days ago so I was jealous until I logged into today and found it was available. So it must have just been released. On a server, I always apply the kernel updates. Since 18.04 is an LTS release, I believe it's tested well before it makes it into the repos.
Btw, what's curious is that I haven't upgraded to 20.04 yet but I see the new kernel already. It's version 5.3.0-46-generic. So maybe on the desktop for 19.10, you do have no choice, because I didn't explicitly choose to upgrade the kernel to the 5.3.0 series and it did. Oddly, at the kernel website, it doesn't list 4.15.x as a long-term release. This makes me think that in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu is providing updates to it, not the kernel developers.
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 22, 2020, 05:27:36 PM
....
Btw, what's curious is that I haven't upgraded to 20.04 yet but I see the new kernel already. It's version 5.3.0-46-generic. So maybe on the desktop for 19.10, you do have no choice, because I didn't explicitly choose to upgrade the kernel to the 5.3.0 series and it did. Oddly, at the kernel website, it doesn't list 4.15.x as a long-term release. This makes me think that in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu is providing updates to it, not the kernel developers.
Actually, kernel 5.3 is the Ubuntu 19.10 kernel; 5.4 is the 20.04 LTS kernel.
I suspect you're right about Ubuntu providing these kernel updates. Is the "kernel website" you are referring to the Ubuntu kernel website or an upstream website?
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 22, 2020, 05:27:36 PM
....
I didn't see the -96 release previously on the server when I checked it a few days ago so I was jealous until I logged into today and found it was available. So it must have just been released. On a server, I always apply the kernel updates. Since 18.04 is an LTS release, I believe it's tested well before it makes it into the repos.
When you say that you apply the kernel updates, do you mean that a program like Software Update tells you that they are available and you just let it install these? Or do you have to do what I did this morning, which is to hunt down the updates, download them and then install them with "dpkg -i"?
What is strange for me is that on my 18.04 partition, no new versions of the 4.15 kernel are shown as available when I check for updates. No -91, no -96. I can't check now, but I don't even think it showed the -72 available, which is what I carried over when I updated to 20.04.
Update: Following instructions given by a dev responding to my kernel bug post, I have downloaded and tested various Ubuntu kernels from their Mainline website to determine the kernel version that started working poorly with my iMac. Turns out that the line was between kernels 5.2 and 5.3, with kernels 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2 working OK and kernels 5.3 and 5.4 not. He now wants me to test different stages of 5.2 to see if I can more precisely find the change where the problems started; he calls this a kernel bisect, and it involved testing kernels intermediate in sequence to the ones I have already found to be good and bad. Working this method, I was able to establish that all kernel versions of 5.2 were good until the rc1 for kernel 5.3. I'm hoping that this pinpoints the problem and generates a fix.
I'm guessing that one way to further pinpoint the problem would be to examine the changelog of the rc1 kernel, but I'll wait for further instructions.
Quote from: fox on April 22, 2020, 05:58:57 PM
Actually, kernel 5.3 is the Ubuntu 19.10 kernel; 5.4 is the 20.04 LTS kernel.
I suspect you're right about Ubuntu providing these kernel updates. Is the "kernel website" you are referring to the Ubuntu kernel website or an upstream website?
Thanks. I hadn't actually looked at the kernel version for 19.10 until your issue came up. The kernel website is the upstream website. It's the guys who make THE kernel. All distros take that kernel and then customize or add/remove things in it. You can take the kernel source code and make you own kernel by customizing the various settings and there are
a lot of them. I used to do this way back more out of fun than any particular reason. The kernel website actually has several kernel releases doing at any one time which includes long-term versions, kind of like LTS.
Quote from: fox on April 24, 2020, 01:35:53 PM
Update: Following instructions given by a dev responding to my kernel bug post, I have downloaded and tested various Ubuntu kernels from their Mainline website to determine the kernel version that started working poorly with my iMac. Turns out that the line was between kernels 5.2 and 5.3, with kernels 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2 working OK and kernels 5.3 and 5.4 not. He now wants me to test different stages of 5.2 to see if I can more precisely find the change where the problems started; he calls this a kernel bisect, and it involved testing kernels intermediate in sequence to the ones I have already found to be good and bad. Working this method, I was able to establish that all kernel versions of 5.2 were good until the rc1 for kernel 5.3. I'm hoping that this pinpoints the problem and generates a fix.
I'm guessing that one way to further pinpoint the problem would be to examine the changelog of the rc1 kernel, but I'll wait for further instructions.
That's really cool that you're doing testing for them. It's one of the valuable ways to contribute to the Linux community. And, I'm just guessing here, there likely aren't a lot of people that run Linux on a Mac, if only because Macs make up a small slice of the over computer market. So your experience is likely invaluable to them. I certainly don't remember what it was a long time ago in a galaxy, well, in this galaxy, I submitted a bug report on SUSE back when I owned SUSE Desktop Professional and they fixed it. I felt pretty proud that I contributed by just finding a mistake. Filling out a bug report isn't always easy, either or having to do some specific testing the developer asks you to do.
I probably missed where you said it so pardon if this is a stupid question - what list did you submit the bug report to? Was it a Ubuntu list? Or were you on a kernel list like the ones on kernel.org? I only found out recently that most of the leading distros have people on their payroll that contribute to the kernel project which benefits all distros. A lot of the work involves supporting new hardware but also different filesystems, and some new features as well as fixing bugs and providing security patches.
Quote from: fox on April 22, 2020, 06:05:49 PM
When you say that you apply the kernel updates, do you mean that a program like Software Update tells you that they are available and you just let it install these? Or do you have to do what I did this morning, which is to hunt down the updates, download them and then install them with "dpkg -i"?
I use the following commands in the CLI, also known as the terminal:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgradeSo, yes, I do what you said first except that I apply all updates. The first command in the terminal updates the catalogue from the repos and tells me what packages are available. I don't pick and choose; I just install them all. I'm using an LTS version of Ubuntu so they've been well-tested or they wouldn't be there unless they're to fix new vulnerabilities. Even then, they are still using an older more stable version of the kernel and they're just fixing bugs and vulnerabilities, not adding new features, so it's much less likely to break something unlike with a desktop. Vulnerabilities are often exploited at the server level so it's important to stay up on those updates. The information on the servers is often more valuable - names, contact info, credit card numbers, banking information, passwords, etc.
Unfortunately, this method wouldn't work for me, as the 4.15 kernel isn't in the Ubuntu 20.04 repos. The bug site I post on is a Ubuntu launchpad site: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux.
Additionally, I was asked to post a second bug report for the 5.7-rc2 kernel, which also slow booted, but this one wouldn't go past the login screen. (After login it would keep returning to the same login screen.) I hope I'm helping the Ubuntu developers with these reports.
Quote from: fox on April 26, 2020, 07:41:03 AM
Unfortunately, this method wouldn't work for me, as the 4.15 kernel isn't in the Ubuntu 20.04 repos. The bug site I post on is a Ubuntu launchpad site: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux).
I thought you were just wondering how I updated the kernel on the server, which is running on 18.04, an LTS release.
Do you have the link the post where you posted the bug report? I'm curious as to whether the guy who wanted you try stuff works for the kernel team generally or just the one that is used in ubuntu? It's possible Ubuntu to be paying someone to be on the upstream real kernel team, not just the ubuntu kernel team. This is confusing terminology. Let's refer to the kernel team as the guys who develop the kernel that all distros use a variation of and the kernel worked on for specific distro as abc kernel team (e.g. ubuntu kernel team). The actual kernel team won't provide support for distribution kernels or take bug reports from people using distro kernels.
Btw, I remember you once mentioning that you were worried about using the 4.15 kernel because you might not get updates for it. I read somewhere on an official Ubuntu page that the kernel is still updated but only for security issues rated with high severity. Bet you there is a way to use the 4.15 repos from the 18.04 LTS version and continually get that kernel updated until 2023. But you're going down a different road which is probably a better way to go about it.
I don't know about the repos (I'm afraid to activate them), but I am able to get updates from here (https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/kernel/). However, they don't come automatically - I find out about an update through OMG! Ubuntu or some other site and then I go to the bionic kernel packages and download the four relevant files and install them with dpkg. An update was just recently released; the version is 4.15.0-101.
As for Mint, I'm still getting their 4.15 kernel updates automatically as a result of being on Mint 19. However, once I update that to Mint 20 when it comes out, the updates will no longer be automatic. I'll have to then look for an update source. Maybe it's the same as Ubuntu?