[sf-lug] Linux Kernel Advancements

[Sujit K M]

On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:57 AM, Sujit K M <kmsujit at gmail.com> wrote:
> Any one with idea why Linux Kernel is bringing up so many revisions.
> What I thought was the 2.2/2.4 and 2.6 versions took 2 decades and the
> remaining two 3.x and 4.x only about 2 years. Is it because of OS
> technologies/hardware changes, but I thought these revisions were for

1. I think these newer hardware or operating system technology advancements
are handled by backporting to a older kernel.

> Also are these latest kernels
> available in Distros. I also see a lot of 3.x longterm kernels and one

2. I found some thing interesting, you could upgrade your kernel.
http://linoxide.com/linux-how-to/upgrade-linux-kernel-stable-3-18-4-centos/
I followed this while upgrading kernel on Centos 6 to Centos 7 which supports
3.10 version, later upgraded to 3.18 version for development machines about 5
months ago.

#1 and #2 are opposite ways of achieving the same. Which one is suitable.
I for one could see that #2 still could need #1 if the backport is still needed.
But I could also say that #2 is a cleaner way of doing the whole thing.
#1 Is not a clean way if API's are changed for example 3.x to 2.6.x, also you
would be still be rooted to a single kernel which might nearing EOL.