opensuse leap 42,2 - will it be released with the kernel 4.8?

[dilbertone]

hello dear linux-experts,

opensuse leap 42,2 - will it be released with the kernel 4.8?

https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_4.8

lots of new things are waiting for us…

eg

10. Architectures

ARM
Add support for Broadcom BCM23550
BCM23550 SMP support
Xen: Document UEFI support on Xen ARM virtual platforms bcm2835: Add devicetree for the Raspberry Pi 3.
Device Tree sources
BCM5301x: Add BCM953012ER board

see more https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_4.8

question - does opensuse leap 42,2 - will it be released with the kernel 4.8 ?

love to hear from you

dilbertone

[wolfi323]

@dilbertone

opensuse leap 42,2 - will it be released with the kernel 4.8?

No, it will be released with 4.4.x.

This has been decided months ago (it’s the same kernel that SLE12 SP2 uses).

And btw, we are currently at RC1 with RC2 being released soon.
Much too late to jump from kernel 4.4 to 4.8.

Even Tumbleweed has 4.8 just since a few days only…

[ZeroG]

The kernel ver. 4.8 is a transitional one, short term support kernel, absolutely of no interest to Leap.
As I understand openSuse supports LTS kernels only (except the ever rolling, ever testing Tumbleweed)

13.1 → 3.10.x
13.2 → 3.16.x
42.1 → 4.1.x
42.2 → 4.4.x
42.3 → 4.9.x (probably)

https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html

However it seems weird that openSuse 13.2 with kernel supported until April 2020 will be dropped from maintenance in Jan 2017, while the not released yet Leap 42.2 will have support of its kernel until Feb 2018 - just one year, 4 months from now …

[wolfi323]

@ZeroG

As I understand openSuse supports LTS kernels only (except the ever rolling, ever testing Tumbleweed)

Well, that’s not necessarily true in general.

13.1 –> 3.10.x

13.1 came with kernel 3.11.6 (which later got updated to 3.11.10), not 3.10.x.
And it was EOLed shortly after 13.1’s release.

Evergreen switched to 3.12 then this year, because that was/is still supported/used by SUSE in SLE11 (and is LTS upstream).

13.2 –> 3.16.x

3.16 was no (upstream) LTS kernel. It has been dropped upstream over a year ago IIRC (that’s why 13.2 still only has 3.16.7, which was the final version back then).

Ubuntu took over maintainership though and made it LTS later on.

In general, an LTS kernel is preferable though, as it will be maintained upstream for the whole life-time of the release.

PS: regarding 3.16, see the EOL notice here:
https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/10/30/583
That was 2 years ago already, shortly before 13.2 had even been released…

[Christophe_deR]

So, this means that 42.2 's kernel 4.4 will be obsolete in Feb 2018 .
That’s really short. Isn’t it ?
What are openSUSE’s plan to support kernel after Feb 2018 ?

[merk]

Leap has a minor release once a year and by Feb. 2018 42.3 will be out.
42.2 is supported until April (?) 2018 (18 months from release)

[dilbertone]

hello dear Wolfi323, Christophe_deR and Merk

many many thanks for the answers and the information…

@wolfi323

No, it will be released with 4.4.x.

This has been decided months ago (it’s the same kernel that SLE12 SP2 uses).

And btw, we are currently at RC1 with RC2 being released soon.
Much too late to jump from kernel 4.4 to 4.8.

Even Tumbleweed has 4.8 just since a few days only…

good news - the tumbleweed has got ver 4.8 - to use the rolling release seems to be the best method & way to get the newest kernel…
btw: If the next release doesn’t have the new kernel, we can still get the new kernel by installing it ourself. we need to go to kernel.org, download and compile it ourself.
I guess Yast has a tool for doing this.

again - dear Wolfi323, Christophe_deR and Merk many thanks for the hints and ideas…

greetings
dilbert

[wolfi323]

@dilbertone

good news - the tumbleweed has got ver 4.8

Yes, Tumbleweed is a rolling distribution and always gets the latest version of the kernel (and all other packages)

• to use the rolling release seems to be the best method & way to get the newest kernel…

It’s one method, but not necessarily the best.
That depends on your use case.

You can replace the standard kernel on any distribution release. It’s quite independent of the rest of the system.

btw: If the next release doesn’t have the new kernel, we can still get the new kernel by installing it ourself. we need to go to kernel.org, download and compile it ourself.

Or add the Kernel:stable repo that always contains the latest stable kernel as RPM package, including all openSUSE specific patches (unless you install kernel-vanilla of course). And if you leave it enabled, you’d also get updates automatically…

I guess Yast has a tool for doing this.

No.

[Sauerland]

Here on openSUSE 13.2 is kernel 4.8 running without any Problems:

ich@linux64:~> lsb_release -id
Distributor ID: openSUSE project
Description:    openSUSE 13.2 (Harlequin) (x86_64)

ich@linux64:~> uname -a
Linux linux64 4.8.4-1.g402d8c1-default #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Oct 22 11:24:48 UTC 2016 (402d8c1) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

ich@linux64:~>zypper lr -d | grep 'kernel-stable'
14 | kernel-stable                | kernel-stable                            | Ja        | (r ) Ja         | Ja            |   99      | rpm-md   | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/                |

But no precompiled Modules of the Distribution will work, such as broadcom-wl, virtualbox-host-kmp. nvidia-kmp and so on.

[wolfi323]

@Sauerland

But no precompiled Modules of the Distribution will work, such as broadcom-wl, virtualbox-host-kmp. nvidia-kmp and so on.

The Virtualization repo is available for Kernel:stable too, and contains a virtualbox-host-kmp (and -guest-kmp) built against the latest kernel.
And nvidia-kmp will be compiled on installation, so should work too (unless it is incompatible with the latest kernel). You may need to reinstall it after a kernel update though.

[hw1380]

Is it true that starting with kernel 4.4 skylake support was added ?
I’m asking because I have a skylake based notebook and if I use the standard kernel 4.1.X on 42.1, the system freezes very often.
That’s the reason why I have updated the kernel to 4.6.3, locked the kernel packages and disabled the kernel and bumblebee repos.

If this is true, I can stick to the standard kernel of 42.2.

[OrsoBruno]

@hw1380

Is it true that starting with kernel 4.4 skylake support was added ?
I’m asking because I have a skylake based notebook and if I use the standard kernel 4.1.X on 42.1, the system freezes very often.
That’s the reason why I have updated the kernel to 4.6.3, locked the kernel packages and disabled the kernel and bumblebee repos.

If this is true, I can stick to the standard kernel of 42.2.

Other users with a Skylake are apparently happy with Leap 42.2 RC1 and the 4.4.x kernel, but you might need the i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 boot option.

[dilbertone]

hello dear hw1380, hello dear OrsoBruno, dear all,

many thanks for your replies with the very interesting comments. As the threadstarter i am very interested in all the experiences and ideas combined with the new kernel.

the notebook:
http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/hp+14+r103ng
vendor: HP 14-r103ng
Intel® Pentium® N3540 Prozessor 4x 2.16 GHz - (this is called a baytrail processor!?)
HDD 500 GB

issues:: Shootdown does not work properly - i cannot get to Poweroff

                 https://forums.opensuse.org/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by **hw1380**                     https://forums.opensuse.org/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png](https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?p=2798475#post2798475)                 

             Is it true that starting with kernel 4.4 skylake support was added ?

I’m asking because I have a skylake based notebook and if I use the standard kernel 4.1.X on 42.1, the system freezes very often.
That’s the reason why I have updated the kernel to 4.6.3, locked the kernel packages and disabled the kernel and bumblebee repos.
If this is true, I can stick to the standard kernel of 42.2.

@OrsoBruno

Other users with a Skylake are apparently happy with Leap 42.2 RC1 and the 4.4.x kernel, but you might need the i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 boot option.

i tried alot: the findings (in short):
Opensuse 13.2 with Kernel 3.16 runs well, but 42.1 with the same Kernel 3.16 (and also with kernel 4.1) does not work.There must be an issue with OpenSuse Leap 42.1 (and all other Distries) - some issues have migrated into the kernel that causes the freeze during the shootdown.

In fact : Shootdown does not work properly - i cannot get to Poweroff
tried it with opensuse, ubuntu, mint, knoppix, debina…

**
Guessing: **guess that all is written down here - i struggle with this bug… see: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051

tried also: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051#c434 here https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051 Bug 109051 - intel_idle.max_cstate=1 required on baytrail to prevent crashes -
**
hope: **i hope that the new kernel will help me… Did not test it so far!

[keellambert]

JFI

@dilbertone

hope that the new kernel will help me… Did not test it so far!

Observation
with the following when the new kernel was installed,
if BIOS setting was,

• virtual technology: disabled; OS booted but graphics switched off (totally black screen)
• legacy boot: disabled; OS could not find kernel

with above two enabled, booted normally with grub2 and kwin, no malfunctions noticed in last 48 hours

kernel downloaded from http://www.kernel.org/ and compiled

hp-g7-2248sg<2016Nov06><10:55><~>…uname -a
Linux hp-g7-2248sg 4.8.6-33-default #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 3 15:52:31 CET 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
hp-g7-2248sg<2016Nov06><10:56><~>…

[dilbertone]

good day dear keellambert

many thanks for the reply

@keellambert

JFI

Observation
with the following when the new kernel was installed,
if BIOS setting was,

• virtual technology: disabled; OS booted but graphics switched off (totally black screen)
• legacy boot: disabled; OS could not find kernel

with above two enabled, booted normally with grub2 and kwin, no malfunctions noticed in last 48 hours

kernel downloaded from http://www.kernel.org/ and compiled

hp-g7-2248sg<2016Nov06><10:55><~>…uname -a
Linux hp-g7-2248sg 4.8.6-33-default #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 3 15:52:31 CET 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
hp-g7-2248sg<2016Nov06><10:56><~>…

that sounds surprisingliy good and i thnk that this will help me too. Guess that you run also a baytrail processor.

you tested the new (est) kernel 4.8?

[keellambert]

hi dilbertone

@dilbertone

that sounds surprisingliy good and i thnk that this will help me too. Guess that you run also a baytrail processor.

you tested the new (est) kernel 4.8?

no: cpu details, Quad core AMD A8-4500M APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-HT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB
clock speeds: max: 1900 MHz 1: 1400 MHz 2: 1400 MHz 3: 1700 MHz 4: 1400 MHz

yes: kernel is as quoted, thats stable: 4.8.6 2016-10-31

cheers

[dilbertone]

hello dear keellambert

thx for the quick reply - so if i got you right - you did not struggle with bugs
either baytrail bugs or any others at all!?

[malcolmlewis]

@keellambert

hi dilbertone

no: cpu details, Quad core AMD A8-4500M APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-HT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB
clock speeds: max: 1900 MHz 1: 1400 MHz 2: 1400 MHz 3: 1700 MHz 4: 1400 MHz

yes: kernel is as quoted, thats stable: 4.8.6 2016-10-31

cheers

Hi
Why compile, just use kernel stable repo?

[keellambert]

@dilbertone

• you did not struggle with bugs
  either baytrail bugs or any others at all!?

its understood baytrail bug is only a problem for some types of Intel processors,
as this kernel has only been used with AMD CPU’s this bug has not been encountered

the easiest way to install this kernel is to take malcolnlewis’ advice

have fun