Nack
This is a disclaimer that the policy described below is completely obsolete and irrelevant now. This page was only meant to document a potential roadmap to follow in the event the Ubuntu distro moved to a rolling release policy. At this time, Ubuntu has not chosen to proceed to a rolling release policy, and thus the policy below is a moot point. This wiki only exists for historical reference.
Rolling Release
The following describes policy and package naming conventions for newer kernels in current and subsequent LTS releases.
10.04
For Lucid, we are currently backed into a corner, eg the 10.10 Maverick release is EOL and users are stranded. There is currently no automated solution for upgrading the customers. We will issue a USN and MOTD to the effect that the 10.10 Maverick kernel is falling out of support. It will suggest they install the linux-image-hwe-<flavor> rolling meta package to ensure they are always upgraded to a newer supported kernel.
10.04 10.10 11.04 11.10 12.04 12.10 13.04 13.10 14.04 14.10 15.04 10.04 SP <---*-----*------*------*---------------------------------------------> 10.04 R |=====================================================================| 10.10 L |====================| 11.04 L |====================| 11.10 L |====================|
12.04
The UDS-Q decision is that we will provide the kernels from 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, and 14.04 in 12.04. We propose the following meta packages:
linux-image-<flavour> - this existing meta package will always point to the GA 3.2 kernel
linux-image-hwe-<flavor> -> rolling release meta package. It will point to the hardware enablement kernel package.
linux-hwe-<flavor> -> rolling release meta package. It will point to the hardware enablement kernel and headers packages.
linux-image-current-<flavor> - always points to the the most recently released kernel, e.g., 12.10, 13.04, etc.
linux-current-<flavor> - always points to the the most recently released kernel and headers, e.g., 12.10, 13.04, etc.
Point releases will install using linux-image-hwe-<flavor>.
linux-hwe-<flavour> will lag linux-current-<flavor> until just before a point release is made, at which time it will be set to point to the most recent released kernel and headers. The point release will be installed using linux-hwe-<flavour>.
12.04 12.10 13.04 13.10 14.04 14.10 15.04 15.10 16.04 16.10 17.04 12.04 SP <---*-----*------*------*---------------------------------------------> 12.04 R |=====================================================================| 12.10 E |========================|v 13.04 E |================|v 13.10 E |==========|v 14.04 E |=========================================|
14.04 and Newer
The 14.04 GA kernel will be supported for 5 years. However, the kernel team will adopt a rolling kernel upgrade policy for 14.04 for hardware enablement kernels. This, of course, is predicated on our ability to thoroughly Q/A the development release kernel for regression.
linux-image-<flavor> will reference the GA kernel.
linux-<flavor> will reference the GA kernel and headers.
linux-image-hwe-<flavour> - will reference the hardware enablement kernel.
linux-hwe-<flavor> will reference the hardware enablement kernel and headers.
Rolling releases will be installed using linux-image-hwe-<flavor>.
14.04 14.10 15.04 15.10 16.04 16.10 17.04 17.10 18.04 18.10 19.04 19.10 20.04 20.10 21.04 14.04 SP <---*-----*------*------*---------------------------------------------> 14.04 R |==========|v 14.10 E |==========|v 15.04 E |==========|v 15.10 E |=============|v 16.04 E |=========================================| 16.04 SP <---*-----*------*------*---------------------------------------------> 16.04 R |==========|v 16.10 E |==========|v 17.04 E |==========|v 17.10 E |=============|v 18.04 E |=========================================|