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Linux Kernel 4.14 Will Be An LTS Release (softpedia.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the unreleased-LTS-releases dept.

prisoninmate writes: Development of the Linux 4.14 kernel series did not even start, as the version that's being developed these days is Linux 4.12, which should be promoted to stable early next month, but Softpedia reports that renowned Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced earlier this morning that the upcoming Linux 4.14 kernel series will be an LTS (Long Term Support) branch. The developer promises to support the Linux 4.14 kernel series for at least two years after its release in November 2017, probably until November 2019.

46 comments

  1. Horrible grammar by neglogic · · Score: 2

    "Development of the Linux 4.14 kernel series did not even start" I can't even get past the first clause, much less the first sentence.

    1. Re:Horrible grammar by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      So please edumacate me: what's be bad with grammar in that clause?

      Parses clearly to me: (development of (the Linux 4.14 kernel series)) ((did not even) start).

      If you're after the verb phrase, "did not even", it's correct and widespread: 1 2.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re: Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      "It did not even start" is past tense.

      "It hasn't even started yet" is better.

    3. Re:Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If this is incomprehensible to you, how do you even function in society?

    4. Re:Horrible grammar by Mattatron · · Score: 2

      Because when I see English words I expect English grammar.

    5. Re:Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody said that specific phrase didn't parse, but rather that the grammar of the entire sentence is bizarre and borderline-unintelligible. We can only make guesses at what it's supposed to mean based on our understanding of the context.

      Development of the Linux 4.14 kernel series did not even start? That seems to be saying there was a deadline for development of that series to not only start but also do several other things. All while voicing an especially abstract noun as an actor. Let's not even get into those awkward subordinate clauses afterward.
      "Hey, development was supposed to finish those 4 milestones by COD yesterday. Did development manage to do that?"
      "No, development didn't."
      "How many milestones did development finish?"
      "None of them."
      "What? Development didn't even finish first milestone?"
      "Finish? No, development didn't even start!"

      I can guess that the sentence might have been intended as something like "Development of the Linux 4.14 kernel series has not started yet since the focus is still on developing Linux 4.12, which should be promoted to stable early next month".

      The grammar from the word "but" onward is alright.

    6. Re:Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Probably by communicating with people who know how to speak/write English?

    7. Re:Horrible grammar by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

      It should be "has not even started." The tense is wrong. It's a pretty bad sentence aside from that, too.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    8. Re: Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Development did not start" is past tense. This is incorrect, because we are talking about the current state of development, not a past moment.

      "Development did not even start" is past tense, and compounds its incorrectness, by implying that development SHOULD HAVE STARTED ALREADY. It is garbage English.

      "Development has not started", "Development has yet to start" - this is PRESENT TENSE, PERFECT ASPECT. This is CORRECT. The status of the development is being reported in the present.

    9. Re:Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody said that specific phrase didn't parse, but rather that the grammar of the entire sentence is bizarre and borderline-unintelligible.

      No, actually, 'neglogic' said precisely this:

      I can't even get past the first clause, much less the first sentence.

      I'm not sure who the bigger idiot is, she or you.

    10. Re:Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's be bad with grammar in that clause? Me hearties, Arrr!

      FTFY

    11. Re:Horrible grammar by shaitand · · Score: 0

      Ohhh... you do actually comprehend and are just being a jerk. Got it.

    12. Re: Horrible grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      * has not yet started

  2. Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    >2 years == long term
    >M$ stops updates of XP after 15 years: hurr durr Micro$haft SUX!!!

    1. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Horses for courses. If you need long term support and market share, fork up the dough and go with Microsoft. If you just need something free or cheap and don't need or care about usability or the latest features, go with Linux. It is now as it always has been.

    2. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think that's his point though.

      Does "long term" really mean 2 years in the Linux world?

    3. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Open source is all about lowering your expectations for the benefit of not paying for software.

      But if somebody needs more, they can pay RedHat, which keeps a version of the kernel frozen in time, except for bug and security fixes, for more than 5 years.

    4. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Open source is all about lowering your expectations for the benefit of not paying for software.

      [Citation needed]

      That's news to me.

    5. Re:Slashdot Logic by gweihir · · Score: 1

      And if you had some actual understanding of the matter at hand, you would not post such nonsense. Here is a hint: A kernel is not an OS and what MS supports today does not have the same kernel that it had 15 years back.

      The sheer stupidity of some people...

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    6. Re:Slashdot Logic by chipschap · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'll address the "long term support" component of your comment, as your remarks about usability and features are clearly just trolling.

      "Long term support" seems to mean different things in different circumstances.

      While Win XP certainly had long-term support, at least for security patches, take a look at Windows 10.

      Are the frequent mega-updates really long-term support, or effectively a new OS under the old name? After a couple of mega-updates, can we really say that it's the same OS? Especially in light of some massive breakage.

      I do agree that 2 years isn't my idea of "long term" --- the Mint/Ubuntu LTS releases are 5 years, but even they have kernel updates from time to time.

    7. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >2 years == long term
      >M$ stops updates of XP after 15 years: hurr durr Micro$haft SUX!!!

      Keep in mind that the Linux ecosystem is layered. Most users that get their kernel directly from kernel.org are either enthusiasts or uses it for specialized applications. People that use it on their day to day desktop or server typically get it from their distribution, in that case go to Red Hat and have them patch your kernel for ten years which is about the same as how long Microsoft typically supports their OS releases. XP was an exception but not because Microsoft wanted it to be, they typically support their releases for ten years too; or at least that was the policy up until Windows 10, I'm not sure that they know how they will handle it there.

    8. Re:Slashdot Logic by F.Ultra · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, but it means long term for the upstream Linux kernel. But you don't use that, you use the kernel supplied by your distribution where long term is something completely different.

    9. Re:Slashdot Logic by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      my are you confused, you can pay for support for many other distros including Debian (my former employer used to support that and some other Linux distros). Open source is about choice, including whether you want to pay at all or not. It's also about having the ability to see into the software, even if you're not into coding you can find things from those who are that are useful.

      Lowering expectations? You're telling me the Windows ports of some of the software I use runs better? No they don't.

    10. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The beauty of Linux LTS kernels is that there are a number of them to choose from, with different maintainers who have different policies.

      If you want real LTS, stick to the kernels maintained by Ben Hutchings. His current latest is 3.16, supported until April 2020, and I guess he will pick up another one when 3.2 support expires in May next year.

    11. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open source is all about lowering your expectations for the benefit of not paying for software.

      But if somebody needs more, they can pay RedHat, which keeps a version of the kernel frozen in time, except for bug and security fixes, for more than 5 years.

      Spoken by someone who has never maintained Redhat distributions in the enterprise.

      Redhat does give long term support per major distribution such as 5, 6 or 7. Within each distribution, you will have updates and that includes kernel updates as well. Most updates don't even require a reboot although a restart of the application that was updated is usually required and normally this is not even noticeable by the users on the system.

      Kernel updates do require a reboot although you can get uninterruptable kernels (you pay extra for this). I personally have found that on high-end machines with storage area networks normally worth millions of dollars it takes minutes to go through a reboot although some applications usually databases can take longer. Of course, you do have to raise change requests and have them signed off to get things done but you have to do this on all enterprise systems. Once approved the actual update process which can easily be customized does not interfere with applications or the users.

      The same concepts apply to the free versions of the Redhat family such as Fedora (I run Fedora 25) and CentOS. If I get a kernel update I know I will have to reboot at some stage but I decide the time and when I do reboot it takes about a minute (I have timed it) before I can continue with what I was doing.

    12. Re:Slashdot Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does "long term" really mean 2 years in the Linux world?

      No, it means 10 years (Redhat or CentOS etc.).

      Or maybe 5 years (Ubuntu LTS etc.)

      But of course every time there is an LTS *kernel* release you get the same retards/MS shills/trolls going 'only 2 years? that's crap compared to MS' blah blah blah.

      For anyone who doesn't yet understand, the point is that specific versions of specific *distros* are supported for up to 10 years, giving stability particularly to businesses who need it.

  3. 2 years not long term by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    This why linux has 1% market share. Meanwhile Windows XP is still getting patches depite being "end of life". While real programmers programming in cobol program for 50 year support.

    1. Re: 2 years not long term by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea because programming languages == operating systems.

      Fuck off you troll, you aren't even good at it.

  4. "renowned" by hduff · · Score: 1

    Bahaha! Did he require them to call him that or are they just kissing ass?

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  5. How about an actual "long term" support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Actual long term support would be at least 10 years if not 20 years. If the current kernel works on what you're running then 10+ years is your target. The perfectly fine workstation I'm using right now is over 10 years old.

    Nobody wants to upend their life and spend months tweaking and fixing something that gets redone every 2 years. Fuck that. That's how you introduce security holes.

    1. Re:How about an actual "long term" support? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      You seem to be unaware that you can use a newer Kernel with an older installation and usually that just works.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:How about an actual "long term" support? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      You seem to be unaware that you can use a newer Kernel with an older installation and usually that just works.

      "Usually [...] works" is not good enough for companies that have millions of dollars on the line. The whole idea of long term stable is to minimize risks like "usually".

      Red Hat supports their OS and backport fixes to the kernel for 10 years. They just now stopped supporting 2.6.18, and still support 2.6.32. What Red Hat does not have is a light or embedded version, and unfortunately, linux.org does not support kernels for long when even LTS is only supported for two years. The result is that there's an awful lot of devices out there that run old and buggy kernels, and won't get updated because either backporting kernel fixes or bringing everything else forward on old hardware will take a lot of resources.

    3. Re:How about an actual "long term" support? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      "Usually [...] works" is not good enough for companies that have millions of dollars on the line. The whole idea of long term stable is to minimize risks like "usually". Red Hat supports their OS and backport fixes to the kernel for 10 years.

      So if you want service and support you pay for it and you get it, I sorta fail to see the problem here. The linux.org team is there for development, for a relatively short period they'll fix their own releases but it's not meant as end user support. It's the point they expect to hand it over to Red Hat, Canonical, SuSE or what in-house or volunteer maintenance model you pick. It's not going to happen without someone making an effort, if nobody cares enough or is willing to pay enough to have it maintained well then it will be unsupported. Bring that grievance to the makers of the product you bought, not the kernel development team.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  6. "at least two years" LTS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    How is two years "long term"? Are all developers tweens who feels that software should be less than six months old or deprecated?

    1. Re:"at least two years" LTS? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      That is 2 years for "same minor version". In most cases you can just move to a newer minor kernel without any problem. This is not a Windows-like set-up.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  7. Ugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LTS Kernels are bloody arbitrary and ever more rarely not shipping in actual distros. GKH baffles me sometimes.

    1. Re:Ugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LTS Kernels are bloody arbitrary and ever more rarely not shipping in actual distros. [snip]

      Agreed.

      I think most distros pick the kernels they pick for 2 reasons:

      (1) to keep their programming staff happy and/or employed and/or from leaving;

      (2) to differentiate themselves from all the other distros out there.

      Given the advent of the "ecosystem" called SystemD(eath), a "not so insignificant" chunk of Linux code is becoming more and more standardized across many many distros as SystemD(eath) absorbs more and more code "into the BORG" or "into the POTT", if you prefer a jab at Lennart Pott(head)ering.

      What is left for "customizing" in any distro is the kernel version, the locations of files within the filesystem (LSB isn't "the law" AFAIK... "What is the law?" but I digress), the apps (both CLI and GUI) used on the system, the GUI presentation itself, and the distro's packaging system. Some distros opt to create their own niche package system while others use the package system of their "upstream mother system".

  8. 2 years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2 years is now considered a LTS release? Unreal.

    1. Re:2 years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2 years is now considered a LTS release? Unreal.

      +1

  9. Good to know by crow · · Score: 1

    I used to always run the latest Linux kernel, but since I run VMWare, I ran into too many problems with broken modules doing that. While I would love to see them get all of their modules into the mainline kernel (I fail to see why they really need something that couldn't be a generic service), that's really not relevant to this discussion. I've also had some problems with Nvidia modules, though to a much lesser extent.

    So now my strategy it to always go with the latest LTS kernel. This has proven to be a successful strategy that keeps me with a relatively recent and stable kernel while also having one that will work consistently with outside modules.

  10. Distribution Kernels by crow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hopefully by pre-announcing the selection of a LTS kernel, distributions will make a point of selecting it to minimize their work in maintaining a stable and secure kernel. It was harder for them to do that when the LTS decision wasn't made until after the kernel was out.

  11. Stupid LTS release updates by bib1620 · · Score: 1

    I hope the fuck that it is better than 4.4. Having a LTS kernel come out with updates every few days is a complete joke. You may argue often, release early, but these are kernels used by the distos which do no such thing. Those that want release often, are more than likely to be using bleeding edge kernels, not LTS. Opensuse is at the moment using 4.4.70, yet the latest is 4.4.73. If you want Linux to succeed on the desktop, then bringing out new kernels every few days is not the way to do it.

  12. Why not just call it 4.2? by BatGnat · · Score: 1

    Why not just call it 4.2?
    For simplicity. Personally they should have gone with a year-month versioning system, so you can see how non-bleeding edge you are...

    1. Re:Why not just call it 4.2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because calling it 4.2 would make it too easy to confuse it with version 4.2, released on August 30, 2015.

  13. Why All of The "-1" Ratings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Either the /. mods are bored or prejudiced against "free speech" (must be a Berkeley crowd infesting the /. mods group) that does not seem "offensive" to me

    or

    a number of people are spending their piles of "mod points" to downrate any post that complains against LTS being only 2 years long... which is behavior that is also "prejudiced against free speech".

    1. Re:Why All of The "-1" Ratings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a number of people are spending their piles of "mod points" to downrate any post that complains against LTS being only 2 years long... which is behavior that is also "prejudiced against free speech".

      The people complaining about 2 year LTS support are being rightly modded down because they are either:
      a) Retards who don't understand the subject
      b) MS shills
      c) Trolls

      Anyone who knew the subject would understand that the Kernels from kernel.org are not generally used (particularly by businesses) and their LTS period of 2 years is entirely irrelevant to end users.

      The actual 'LTS' period that matters is for major versions of particular distros and goes up to 10 years (e.g. for Redhat and CentOS) - about the same as a typical windows version, excluding the atypical XP (until Win10 which is more like a rolling release).

      But most of the complainers here know this and are just trolling.