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Linux Kernel 4.6 Has Reached End of Life, Users Urged To Move To Linux 4.7.1

Posted by msmash on from the update-already dept.

Reader prisoninmate writes: Immediately after announcing the availability of the first point release for the Linux 4.7 kernel series, Greg Kroah-Hartman also informed the community about the launch of Linux kernel 4.6.7, which is the seventh maintenance update for the Linux 4.6 stable kernel branch, but it also looks like it's the last one for the series, which has now officially reached end of life. Therefore, if you're using a GNU/Linux operating system powered by a kernel from the Linux 4.6 branch, you are urged to move to Linux kernel 4.7 as soon as possible by installing the brand new Linux kernel 4.7.1 build.

67 comments

  1. Too slow by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Firefox is already on version 47 or something. You guys are going way to slow.

    Hmm, I'm still only on 2.6. I need to get a wiggle on too!

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Too slow by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      That's very outdated thinking. Version numbers are meaningless. There should only be one Linux which magically changes in the background and is always up to date. That's far less confusing.

    2. Re:Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Also, that Linux should go around killing other Linuxes and absorbing their power!

      THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!

    3. Re:Too slow by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      Considering that this is Linux and not organic immortals we're talking about...

      I think it's less Highlander; more Mega Man.

    4. Re:Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firefox is already on version 47 or something. You guys are going way to slow.

      Hmm, I'm still only on 2.6. I need to get a wiggle on too!

      Pfft. My systemd is already at 215

    5. Re:Too slow by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I'm still only on 2.6. I need to get a wiggle on too!

      I know, right?

      [root@oneOfMyProdServers ~]# uname -a
      Linux oneOfMyProdServers 2.6.32-504.12.2.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Mar 11 22:03:14 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

      *sigh*... guess it's time to tell my $2bn/yr-revenue employer to get off their asses and get everyone onto systemd while I'm at it (*shudder*).

      All joking aside, though... I know of corps still using really ancient RHEL 2.x stuff, mostly because they cannot justify migrating off it, but at the same time the thing still has enough justification to stay plugged-in (albeit on its own isolated network...)

      Pretty sure not everyone is going to heed TFA's call, eh?

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    6. Re:Too slow by elal1862 · · Score: 1

      Why is it outdated thinking and what changes do you have in mind?
      Remember that version numbers are mostly intended for developers (to keep track of code revisions), not end-users. My only gripe with version numbers would be that every developer seems to use their own definition of what's a major or a minor revision, rendering the decimal point moot.
      But in the end, an arbitrary number is just that: an arbitrary number — and if you rather don't want to deal with that, Manjaro may be a distro for you.

    7. Re:Too slow by ls671 · · Score: 1

      I beat you:

      uname -a:
      Linux oneOfMyProdServers 2.6.30.5 #4 SMP Sun Dec 29 21:46:53 UTC 2013 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux

      32 bits!

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    8. Re:Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $ uname -a:
      uname: invalid option -- ':'
      Try 'uname --help' for more information.
      $ uname
      Linux

      $ uname -a:
      uname: illegal option -- :
      usage: uname [-amnprsv]

      $ uname -a:
      uname: illegal option -- :
      usage: uname [-aiKmnoprsUv]
      $

      What is this colon you speak of?

    9. Re: Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think my ubuntu 16.04 just updated to 4.4-something-ubuntu.

    10. Re: Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Confirmed:
      uname -r
      4.4.0-34-generic
      on an up to date Ubuntu 16.04

    11. Re:Too slow by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why is it outdated thinking and what changes do you have in mind?

      Well the key important change is that you update your Sarcasm detector 2.4.27p-3 to Sarcasm360 powered by Windows 10 IoT. Then you won't be in a situation where you're left with a Sarcasm detector that is unable to detect the updated sarcasm of the day based on frigging stupid industry trends. The benefits of the new Sarcasm360 is that it's the last one you will ever buy. From this point forward Sarcasm detection will be a subscription based model and the product will randomly change while you use it. Best of all you can use it anywhere you have an internet connection, unfortunately when your internet connection drops so will the Sarcasm360. We only provide offline access to the Sarcasm360 if you buy the enterprise server to host the back end environment. This enterprise version of Sarcasm360 will also allow you to schedule when updates happen and it won't send every piece of Sarcasm you're lolling at back to the mothership. This is only $9000/year for a 2 seat license.

      Sarcasm360 cloud edition can be yours now for only $10/month which is less than the price of 2 skinny chai lattes, a favourite among our hipster millennial development team.

    12. Re:Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like 0.0.215. Wake me when they stop introducing shit breaking shit on releases without warning the developers they're breaking standards.

      Still salty that they didn't think they needed to notify screen, nohup and tmux devs in advance that they were going to break decades of "SIGHUP when the controlling terminal goes away" just to fix their shitty pulseaudio process not shutting down when a user logs out so that they'd have a chance of doing things "the systemd way".

    13. Re: Too slow by corychristison · · Score: 2

      I know you're joking, but I pay for Kernel Care to do something along those lines on a few servers I own.

    14. Re:Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You even added a Firefox insinuation advertisement here???

      Use no Firefox newer than 45.0

      Use NoScript on it, remove all default permissions under XSS and uncheck all under ABE. Use Adblock Plus too.

    15. Re:Too slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      . . . or Mighty No. 9

      But only if it's buggy and unappealing.

    16. Re:Too slow by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

      oh fuck that was funny

      --
      C|N>K
    17. Re:Too slow by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      I beat you

      uname -a
      Linux (none) 2.4.18-rmk3 #1309 Wed Feb 3 15:56:53 2010 armv4l unknown

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    18. Re:Too slow by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      I'd have given this a point but it's already maxed out at 5.

    19. Re:Too slow by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Glad I could help :)

  2. frist prost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LInux is dead, kernel confirms it.

  3. This is why I stay away from Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Well, one of many reasons. However upgrading the kernal is not a trivial procedure and I simply don't have the time for mucking around in the guts of my OS to do this. This is fine for data center professionals but for people like me, I just want something that works because I have real work to do.

    1. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Data center professionals shouldn't custom-compile new kernels, either. The distribution maintainers backport security fixes; there's no need to upgrade Ubuntu/CentOS/whatever with some frankenkernel that then doesn't work with your ACPI and udev userland.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    2. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What a load of rubbish. Your distro provides you with kernel-images, there's no need for you to go mucking about with such unless you specifically want to.

    3. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yep, this message is first and foremost for distro maintainers. If you didn't custom build your kernel, you probably don't need to start doing so.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    4. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by ls671 · · Score: 1

      Is there any distro that doesn't provide kernel sources/compile configuration as well for their kernel images, in case you need to add functionality/tweak stuff?

      I need to recompile on every kernel security/bug fix but I use the sources/compile configuration from my distro with a couple changes to the config. It is not because I want to, it is because I need to.

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    5. Re: This is why I stay away from Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet reformatting and reinstalling is what you have time for.

    6. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by ls671 · · Score: 1

      You silly, I get the security/bug fix from my distro owner but I need to recompile to add functionality not provided in the kernel images.

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    7. Re: This is why I stay away from Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arch ABS has facilities to rebuild all of the base system, including kernel. Patches can be dropped into the kernel dir and rebuilt with a newer kernel as needed.

    8. Re: This is why I stay away from Linux. by corychristison · · Score: 1

      This is why I use Funtoo on my personal machines.

      Building a new kernel with my configuration file is a single command, and one more command to install it into the bootloader.

    9. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How dare you disrespect the king of all distros, Stallman blesses and God Touched, lord Gentoo!

    10. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The Linux kernel is extremely stable. There is no need to backport anything. The distros should just upgrade. Fedora already does this.

    11. Re:This is why I stay away from Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, one of many reasons.

      Indeed. Two of them being your utter ignorance paired with your galloping incompetence.

      Hint: This does not affect you.

  4. How about that TCP bug by urbster1 · · Score: 1

    Is that fixed in 4.7? (referring to this https://linux.slashdot.org/sto... )

    1. Re:How about that TCP bug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, see the announcement: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1608.2/00687.html

      and you find the following fixes included:
      Eric Dumazet (1):
      tcp: make challenge acks less predictable

      Jason Baron (1):
      tcp: enable per-socket rate limiting of all 'challenge acks'

      Note that several distros patched it even earlier (Fedora seems to have fixed it in their kernel 4.6.4-301 according to koji).

  5. Still waiting for zfs support by james_marsh · · Score: 1

    Sadly still no stable support for 4.7 from the zfs on Linux packaging for Debian :(

    1. Re:Still waiting for zfs support by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      I'm more interested in budget fair queuing, which is an instant performance maximization with no trade-offs.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    2. Re:Still waiting for zfs support by james_marsh · · Score: 1

      I thought that was meant to be making its way upstream ages ago?

    3. Re:Still waiting for zfs support by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2

      Yeah, it was. Haven't heard anything about that in a while.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
  6. Stick with LTS kernels by crow · · Score: 2

    If the idea of your kernel no longer getting point releases bothers you, you should stick with the Long Term Stability releases. For most users, this is done by default using the distribution kernels. For users that build their own kernels, upgrading to the next release isn't much more difficult than upgrading to the next bugfix point release. If you're building your own kernel and use commercial kernel modules (e.g., VMWare), then stick with LTS kernels to minimize version conflicts.

    So for most Linux users, this story is a non-story.

  7. distro specific upgrade paths by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    this might not make a lot of sense for many users, so here are a few upgrade paths by distro:
    Fedora: no worries. the kernel was rolled into systemd ages ago and now exists as a ruby implementation of the original lua rewritten systemd.kernel.target.branch.effluent.geezer.pickledbeef
    Debian: as per the agreement, this new kernel will require a minimum of ninety (90) days of furious argument and flamewar. please switch to capslock now.
    Ubuntu: Did you sign the agreement? what about the waiver? Is mark still staring in through the window with a bucket of off-brown latex paint? I heard he keeps the last person to challenge the kernel revision in an ambulatory dresser in his bathroom.
    Gentoo: Follow the Arch documents
    Arch: get around to documenting the new kernel for Gentoo.
    Slackware: Did you hear what the kids did with this years kernel? oh sweet gods theyll kill us all with their damned agile programming. i saw one the other day on a hovering board and it make me so furious I briefly considered leaving the basement.
    LFS: if slackware leaves the basement youll need to crawl out from under their desk and steal a few handfulls of corn chips and a swig of mountain dew. once thats done reference this kernels dependencies as youve scrawled them into the burger wrapper slackware dropped last week. and remember, sunlight is exactly how Riddick depicts it.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:distro specific upgrade paths by stinerman · · Score: 1

      Heh. For Debian, I think they're almost ready to move to the 3.x series. Maybe. In a few years.

      That was sarcasm. I use Debian and love it.

    2. Re:distro specific upgrade paths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Debian uses 3.16 if I remember correctly, and last released used 3.2.

  8. I guess this means no VMware! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can all switch to 4.7 because the lack of VMware support for 4.7 will hardly be noticed.

    1. Re:I guess this means no VMware! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long at it's owned^W supported by systemd, nothing else matters.

    2. Re:I guess this means no VMware! by nnull · · Score: 1

      Although, not official, you can get it to compile and working by changing a single line in vmnet. Unfortunately, VMware has been seriously slacking in linux support lately since 4.6.

    3. Re:I guess this means no VMware! by Tanktalus · · Score: 1

      I have the same problem with the nvidia drivers - last time I tried using 4.7.0, the nvidia drivers crapped out during installation. I know there's a patch out there somewhere, I'd rather get it from Nvidia.

    4. Re:I guess this means no VMware! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't jump on shiny new kernels if you need proprietary modules from Nvidia or VMware. Stick with long term kernels and it will be a lot less painful.

  9. Unsupported after just 15 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That doesn't compare favourably to how long Windows and macOS receive patches.

    1. Re: Unsupported after just 15 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still better than android, which drops support before it ships grime the device manufacturer.

    2. Re: Unsupported after just 15 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't know that you could download custom kernels for Windows. Do you have a link?

  10. Ubuntu 4.4.0?!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My boot indicates vmlinuz-4.4.0-34!
    ---
    Linux Kernel 4.6 Has Reached End of Life, Users Urged To Move To Linux 4.7.1
    ---
    Why is Ubuntu so far behind?

    1. Re:Ubuntu 4.4.0?!?!? by Narishma · · Score: 1

      I believe 4.4.x is an LTS version and those are supported much longer than regular versions.

      --
      Mada mada dane.
    2. Re:Ubuntu 4.4.0?!?!? by yusing · · Score: 1

      You are correct sir.

      --

      "You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson

  11. Am i safe? by Espectr0 · · Score: 1

    espectr0@lunix:/home/espectr0# uname -a
    Linux lunix 3.16.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt25-2 (2016-04-08) i686 GNU/Linux

    --
    Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
    1. Re:Am i safe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux anoncoward 4.7.1-gentoo #1 SMP Wed Aug 17 08:43:36 MDT 2016 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

    2. Re:Am i safe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hi, i'm vegan

  12. hey Greg... by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    fsck off...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  13. FBI PRISONINMATE SUBMITS 1000x EACH DAY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some dumb ass shit.

    You don't need to push and urge and DEEEEMMM MAAANNDAAATORY updating Linux these days cunts.

    If you don't need it, don't worry about it. Beware of anything updated during this time of spy desperation. They are grasping at any and every last bit of citizens data, even though it won't help them pull off shit.

    Fucking dickheads. Fuck Debian, fuck the Debian "Have you hugged your FBI Debian today" poll too.

    die cunts. all to Hell.

  14. LINUX HAS NO END OF LIFE FBI FUCKTARDS === by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux 2.6.x still runs great. No systemd either. Fast as fuck.

    Pushing an end of life for 4.6.x kernels? Slashdot FBI are out of their minds. Do you even know how stupid you sound to tech literate people though? Didn't they teach you this in criminal justice @ community college?

    Stay away from ANYTHING DEBIAN that is NEW.

    Pro-tip: change your PC clock to screwy unless you need email headers to be accurate or similar. Just have a watch next to your PC or whatever.

    [ totally fucks up FBI default timelog monitoring ]

  15. Android by hackel · · Score: 1

    Google and the Android developers better hurry up and get their act together... The 3.4 kernel on my Nexus 5 is woefully outdated—over 4 years old now! I know they were trying to get all of their patches merged upstream, I hope that happens soon.

    1. Re:Android by hackel · · Score: 1

      3.4 doesn't actually reach EOL until Sept. I'm sure knowing Google's and OEMs' track records, they'll get everyone upgraded by them. Good times.

    2. Re:Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hm? What feature do you feel you are missing in 3.4?

      Not quite umm uhhh enough?

  16. Yggdrasil updates? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yggdrasil - no issues with the current kernel