ExtendedStable

Revision 13 as of 2012-04-05 20:59:27

Clear message

Stable Kernel Updates

The Ubuntu Kernel Team provides a git repo available to the greater Linux community which provides stable patches for certain versions of the Linux kernel.

Repository

The repository probably will be available at git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/linux-stable.git, for now an example repository is set up at git://kernel.ubuntu.com/herton/linux-stable.git

master

tracks the Linus master tree

linux‑<version>.y

stable tree for linux <version> release, final patches releases go to this

linux‑<version>.y‑queue

last release of stable tree for <version> release, with patches on top that are to be released with next <version> stable update

linux‑<version>.y‑review

last release of stable tree for <version> release, with patches on top ready to be released with next <version> stable update, but which are on release candidate status (waiting any complaints or potential fixes before being released)

<version> is the linux stable series the Ubuntu Kernel Team provides stable patches for. See the Version Matrix section for more information.

Builds

We will be hooking the stable tree up with our automated build and testing infrastructure. The built binaries will be available for download and installation.

New Releases

New releases of stable patches will be announced at kernel-team@lists.ubuntu.com, the linux kernel mailing list (lkml) and the stable mailing lists.

We will have a cadence of 1 to 3 weeks for new releases (that is, each 1/2/3 weeks if there are patches in the queue they will be put into a release candidate status, and if nothing is wrong after 2/3 days they will be released). (TODO: may be detail more the release/maintenance process)

Contributing

All patches for the stable releases maintained by the Ubuntu kernel team should be submitted upstream, following the stable upstream acceptance rules (see Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt in the upstream kernel source tree for more information). The Ubuntu Kernel Team should monitor and pick the relevant stable patches automatically once they are released with upstream stable. In case that not happens, or the change/patch is only applicable to one of the maintained versions by the Ubuntu kernel team (in the case the patch isn't relevant to any of the current stable kernel versions being maintained by upstream, for example when a Cc: stable@kernel.org isn't applicable anymore), you can contact the Ubuntu kernel team at kernel-team@lists.ubuntu.com requesting the patch to be applied. Of course the patch must conform to the stable upstream acceptance rules in the second case.

Version Matrix

This is the table with status of linux kernel versions that Ubuntu Kernel Team (UKT) provided, provides or plan to provide with stable patches support

Linux Version

Last Upstream Stable

Start of UKT support

End of UKT support

3.2

3.2.?

when upstream stable drops 3.2.y series

April 2017

2.6.32+drm33*

2.6.32.?/2.6.33.20

when upstream stable drops 2.6.32.y series/already on lookout for drm fixes for 2.6.33 as it's unsupported upstream now

April 2015

* Currently 2.6.32+drm33 is maintained as a special case and the repository and other details diverge from what is described in this page