When are we going to see some newer kernels ?

[JD]

On 04/15/2011 10:08 AM, Phil Meyer wrote:
> On 04/15/2011 10:24 AM, Linuxguy123 wrote:
>> $ uname -a
>> Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.35.11-83.fc14.i686.PAE #1 SMP Mon Feb 7
>> 06:57:55 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
>>
>> Am I missing something or is this the latest F14 kernel available ?
>> When are we going to see some newer kernels ?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> LG
>>
>>
> Fedora releases usually don't update major kernel numbers.  The idea is
> to start a release as near current as reasonable and then patch that up
> as it goes go along.
>
> Sometimes there are kernel issues that are addressed in a major revision
> that cannot be back ported, and it has happened that a Fedora release
> gets new major revisions early on.
>
> Considering the frequency of Fedora releases, you can understand that at
> some point after release the kernel major number becomes 'fixed' in
> order to allow the next release to pick up the latest version.
>
> Fedora 15 is currently at: 2.6.38.2-9.fc15.x86_64
>
> Depending upon several things, it may be possible to see a 2.6.39
> release in F15, but probably no higher than that.
>
> Does this make sense?
>
> Its a whole lot of work to get all of the Fedora/RH patches lined up for
> any given 2.6.XX release.
>
> It is much more manageable to go into maintenance mode after a major
> Fedora release, and limit kernel patches to security and performance
> enhancements.  This also helps clarify what kinds of things should go
> upstream.
>
> I would bet very strongly against a>  2.6.35 kernel for Fedora 14 at
> this point.
>
> Good Luck!
What you say sounds correct, from experience.
But minor releases happen rather quickly.
Last March I downloaded 1 major release and
2 minor releases. Now, there is a 3rd
minor release:

linux-2.6.38.tar.bz2        72988 KB     03/15/2011     01:40:00 AM
linux-2.6.38.1.tar.bz2     73038 KB     03/23/2011     08:30:00 PM
linux-2.6.38.2.tar.bz2     73037 KB     03/27/2011     10:51:00 PM
linux-2.6.38.3.tar.bz2     73044 KB     04/14/2011     08:23:00 PM

The 3 previous major releases:

linux-2.6.35.tar.bz2     67682 KB     08/01/2010     12:00:00 AM
linux-2.6.36.tar.bz2     68630 KB     10/20/2010     09:15:00 PM
linux-2.6.37.tar.bz2     71854 KB     01/05/2011     01:06:00 AM

So, major releases appear to be made once every 2 to 3 months,
depending on many factors that the developers have to deal with.

This is a very fast track for major releases!!
But perhaps each distro will go through it's own cycle of patching
and porting of features it deems important.

Source: ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/