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On 03/04/2020 12:18, Brad Rogers wrote:
It may depend on which meta package (if any) you have installed - kernel updates are not automatic in several distros. This is a security measure. Kernel updates may cause things to fail catastrophically. For example, in Debian testing if I have installed; linux-image-5.4.0-3-amd64 updates will be limited to linux-image-5* As soon as (say) linux-image-6.0.2-1-amd64 comes out, the kernel will not be updated automatically. To get automatic upgrades to the latest kernel I have to install the meta-package; linux-image-amd64 which depends on the latest kernel available in testing. You should also keep at least one older kernel available on your machine because, if things do go belly up with the new kernel, you've still got an old one around to boot up with. To that end, most distros don't automatically remove old kernels at update time.
Unhelpfully I don't think downstream distros usually keep all the same sensible Debian conventions so "linux-image-amd64" isn't an installable target on Mint or Ubuntu. I'm not even sure that there is a general "latest distro kernel" metapackage in either that you can reliably apt install and know you've got the latest available. I probably should know that really I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Think you're perhaps overstating the whole kernel update disaster scenario a bit as well. That just doesn't happen any more, especially with distro managed released kernels. Unless you're using Sid perhaps? Considering that the new kernel is exactly the same as the crappy old kernels except with additional incremental bug fixes layered on top and newer hardware support it's a bit tricky to see how an older kernel is better than a new one in any way whatsoever. Linus and the thousands of other kernel devs aren't wasting their time you know! Worse case scenario is your box doesn't boot on the new kernel and you just have to reboot and use the old one instead. Hardly major.
Julian is also specifically square in the middle of a "my weird old hardware doesn't work" problem - stage 1 of solving that particular issue is always to fully update and grab the latest kernel to see if that now has support.
Not really disagreeing with you here, just less convinced of any risk or issues even worth mentioning with kernel upgrades.
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