For the next release of Opensuse we seem to be getting kernel 2.6.30. Why are we not targeting the newer linux kernel 2.6.31 which is at RC3 today. The Opensuse developement is only at milestone 3, well 4 in a few weeks time.
We could bennefit from the numberous Graphics improvements which include the Direct Rendering Manager and Intel Display Port etc, the Sound blaster X-Fi drivers just to name a few. For us using Opensuse for a Desktop PC its important to have greater hardware compatability 
I’m sure they’ll squeeze 2.6.31 in the final
Let’s hope so. Because if they won’t we’ll have to wait 8 months for the newer kernel lol!
BenderBendingRodriguez wrote:
> Let’s hope so. Because if they won’t we’ll have to wait 8 months for
> the newer kernel lol!
It is very likely that 11.2 will continue with 2.6.30 forever, but you
don’t have to. My system always has the standard kernel available in
the GRUB menu, but it rarely gets booted after installation. I use git
to maintain a copy of the mainline kernel, which is what I boot. I
never bother with the openSUSE patches. What do I lose? There is one
terminal ioctl that is missing, I don’t have apparmor, and I don’t get
a splash screen when booting or shutting down. None of these are missed.
Building a kernel is not rocket science. Once you have the source
installed, you can get the configuration of the current kernel from
/proc/config.gz, uncompress it, and copy it to .config. That step is
done only once. Then a kernel build is:
make ; sudo make modules_install install
When that finishes, your GRUB menu has a new entry. Once you have
confirmed that it boots and runs OK, you can make it be the default.
You are right but ignoring that release we will miss BIG changes that happen in the kernel right now, like the rootless X server, GEM and all that stuff that is supposed to make it run better 
If that decision is made it seems a little short sighted to me, fixing the kernel so early in the development process. Why fix so early ?
agreed, we should get 2.6.31 with 11.2.
here is an openfate poll requesting exactly that:
https://features.opensuse.org/306657
Just voted lets hope this works.lol!
simonau wrote:
> If that decision is made it seems a little short sighted to me, fixing
> the kernel so early in the development process. Why fix so early ?
The question is one of stability. The release of 2.6.31 will not
happen before mid August. Although the testers exercise the new
version as heavily as possible, there are always hardware combinations
that show bugs once the kernel is in wider distribution. These
problems are fixed in subsequent releases. By 2.6.31.2 or 2.6.31.3,
most of the problems will have been located; however, this stage will
not be reached before 11.2 is on the street.
emmm, SUSE can just release with kernel 2.6.31 (even if it may not be problem-free for some of the gazillion of HW out there) and then offer updates to .31.1, .31.2, etc through the update system
No matter how old kernel they use there will ALWAYS be something if not suse specific then something to fix. I’d go for 2.6.31 (add to this that psychological effect for people seeing newest kernel ;)). Anyway, i won’t really care since i build my own kernel anyway but 2.6.31 should be included (there were some ext4 fixes that may improve openSUSE’s reliability)
agreed.
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#7: Stephan Kulow (coolo) (2009-07-16 09:30) [reply]
I talked with Jeff yesterday about 2.6.31 and taking it would invalidate one month of beta testing - due to holiday season I would expect it rather late than early. Xorg 7.5 might be another story.
* #8: jimbo bigcreed (dimble_thricefoon) (2009-07-16 11:23) [reply]
Is that a no for 2.6.31, or just a case of; "it's complicated so we haven't decided yet"?
Likewise with X.org, is that a case of; "we'd like to include it, provided they stick to the early august release date"?
I do think both are important for the reasons stated above. It is easy to update programs and DE's, but not everyone is confident in being able to update core system components like the kernel and X, especially when it may break updates.
If these two components were relatively fresh this wouldn't be a problem, as current is current, however X.org 7.4 will be obsolete by the time 11.2 releases, and 2.6.30 won't be far off that point.
o #9: Michael Löffler (michl19) (2009-07-16 15:25) [reply]
I just learned from coolo that 2.6.31 migth be still on the table. So, if possible from a time perspective we'll include it - therfor I set PM priority to important. I'll open a new feature for x.org to track them seprately.
+ #10: Michael Löffler (michl19) (2009-07-16 15:45) [reply] (latest comment)
X.org now tracked in https://features.opensuse.org/306903The latest kernel will always naturally be wanted, almost expected. Considering the longer release cycle I would not think 1 month of beta testing will not be “lost”. Perhaps I’m ignorant but is not the Opensuse kernel nowadays the vanilla flavour?
X.org 7.5 this is also very high on our wanted list, but I guess only time will tell… at worst it may be dished up as a factory update I guess
as far as i know serious core components are never officially updated and kept within the supported update scheme, which is why we want the distro to start with it.
It is kinda silly since Ubuntu is able to include the latest kernel while we having more time to work with 11.2 can’t. openSUSE 11.2 will be release a month later than Ubuntu 9.10 and yet we will have an older kernel than Ubuntu. This is silly…
Yes it is silly by the time 11.2 is released 2.6.32 will be in beta, and 2.6.30 will be old.
I guess that is because openSUSE is in reality base for SLES and they wan’t to have much time to make it stable as possible while with 2.6.31 they’d have less time to fix stuff. I am already running 2.6.30 and as soon as 2.6.31 comes out i will install it (using my old tweaked config file:)) but i’d still like to see 2.6.31 “official” and supported. There are some great changes happening in 2.6.31 and we will miss it…
BenderBendingRodriguez, You may need to teach us lot how to update our standard OpenSuse install with the latest 2.6.31 kernel :\
How about a short “how to” article? :idea: Are you up for it 
Honestly, there are hundreds of HowTo’s.
Simplest is unpack the kernel source to /usr/src/, go to this directory and if we want to adjust it graphically we invoke it with make xconfig (qt3-devel necessary).
We can slim it down with checking what modules are loaded with lsmod and make them permanent in the kernel while getting rid of the rest like some filesystems we will never use etc.
After that it is a matter of simple
make -jX where X is amount of cores + 1
make modules_install
make install
And voila
P.S. Don’t forget about compiling the drivers for your graphic card ot VirtualBox modules