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Linux Kernel 4.2 Released
An anonymous reader writes: The Linux 4.2 kernel is now available. This kernel is one of the biggest kernel releases in recent times and introduces rewrites of some of the kernel's Intel Assembly x86 code, new ARM board support, Jitter RNG improvements, queue spinlocks, the new AMDGPU kernel driver, NCQ TRIM handling, F2FS per-file encryption, and many other changes to benefit most Linux users.
Wrong. Ubuntu continues to roll out updates for everything, including the kernel, for every version it supports. You will continue to receive new kernels for Ubuntu 14.04 right up until it reaches End Of Life, just as you will with Fedora. (For Fedora, it's versions 21 and 22 that are currently supported.) Please learn what you're talking about before replying, instead of just guessing.
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Except that there is a kernel package built for every version.
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
Right now there is no stable version of 4.2.
You can also go to kernel.org, download 4.2, make oldconfig your existing .config file (will take hours depending on how knowledgeable you are and how old a kernel your running), make, make modules_install, make install and try it out. At your own risk.
The 15.10 kernel will be backported to 14.04. The kernels for each release after an LTS (14.04 is LTS) is always backported. They are each supported for nine months, and the backported LTS kernel from 16.04 will eventually be supported for three years on 14.04.
> ... like Slackware and Gentoo, are rife with a different set of problems: they're goddamn impractical ...
>
> Gentoo fucks up the compilation part to a large extent, and Slackware totally misses the boat when
> it comes to providing a usable system out of the box
>
Please do not elevate your personal beliefs and experiences to the level of universal law.
I have been using Gentoo for a considerable period of time and for me, and I am sure for many others as well, it has proven to be highly functional, efficient, and trouble free. Since Gentoo still offers the user maximum choice it is probably the only recommended Linux distribtion in this new age of (systemd) conformity.
Everything? No. Just the kernel and X. Also note that if you first upgrade to a non-LTS kernel you're only getting support on that until the next LTS kernel is out, if you want something you can leave untouched for a few years afterwards you'd better stick with the original kernel.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
> Gentoo fucks up the compilation part to a large extent...
Eh? The deal with Gentoo has *always* been that you compile the packages yourself. If you have more than one system, you easily can use one of them to package the compiled result into a package that can be installed on all of the others. There are also Gentoo derivatives (like Sabayon) that do the compilation for you.
Agreed.
Personally I am using Funtoo, but same thing in many ways.
If you don't like the package management system of a particular distro, use something else. Choice is great. That is specifically why I use funtoo, I can choose things in such a finely granulated way it is almost mind boggling.
Gentoo/Funtoo works great for me in various systems (laptop, workstation, htpc).
For my HTPC I actually build it in a chroot on my workstation, and rsync/cp the useful parts to the device. Full blown media center in ~3GB on a fast, small SSD. Try doing that with Ubuntu.
*walks away laughing maniacally*
Being mostly a KDE user, I don't know why everybody hates GNOME 2, can anybody explain this?
It's Gnome 3 that gave rise to a lot of bile, not Gnome 2. Gnome 2 on the whole was pretty popular.
Gnome 3 has actually come on a long way too. Its big problem when it first appeared was that it removed lots of important functionality, because the developers thought that they knew better than the users, and although the users wanted them, the developers were of the opinion that they *shouldn't* want them. Suddenly all the things that made your desktop a constructive work environment were taken away, and to begin with at least, complaints were ignored.
Over time though it has got better, and there are features of it which I now really miss when I'm using other desktop environments. There a still some really stupid design decisions, and bits that work worse than in earlier versions, but it's got back to being usable.
A few examples of remaining irritants in Gnome 3:
* If you suspend your laptop, then resume, the network manager prompts you to ask whether you want to reconnect to the WiFi point which you were using before. Why? It doesn't prompt you at boot, just after a resume. Yes, of course I want to carry on using the WiFi I was using a moment ago.
* By default, if you drag a window to the top of the screen it causes the window to be maximised. Yes, I know they copied this from some other desktop, but it doesn't make it any less idiotic. It's overloading a gesture to do something different, and leaving you no way to do the old thing which the gesture used to do. It doesn't even make it any easier to maximise a window, because you could always double click on the title bar to achieve the same thing. It does however mean that if you want a number of tall windows (making best use of your large monitor) you have to jump through hoops to achieve what should be easy.
Doubtless others can provide lots of other examples.