I was just wondering when do we move to Linux Kernel v4.16.0 that was released 04/01/2018?18?
hi,
we won’t “move” to 4.16. Our release process is to use the current LTS kernel, and stick to it. that’s why we maintain our own release branches which are derived from LTS (4.4, 4.9 and 4.14 now). You can expect a major kernel migration , once a year.
Several years ago, we used to move to every new kernel, and users complained that we were moving too fast… there is no perfect answer , i guess!
We used 4.11 throughout last year on DB820c bring up. Mostly because when we started to develop for 820c, 4.9 (current LTS) was already too old, and we didn’t want to start on an old branch. however our 4.14 release branch was updated last week, for 820c, and from now on, we won’t be maintaining 4.11 branch anymore.
Also note that once we switch to a new LTS, we no longer provide support for the older LTS. That can of course be done if needed, but that becomes a business discussion (and it won’t come for free).
Thanks for the quick and detailed answer.
I am OK with 4.14.
Just wanted to understand our strategy.
- Staying LTS for Linux Kernel
- Experiment with test channel for Debian OS
Is that correct?
hey,
yes, this is correct. Now that you say it this way, i understand it can be confusing 
there are reasons why we ended up with this specific combo…
- most of the development we (or developers that build similar boards) are doing is in the kernel
- we are pretty much agnostic of the distro/user space. the only thing we need is ‘something recent’ especially for Multimedia (Gstreamer) and Graphics (Mesa, Xorg, Wayland)
By using Debian testing we get ‘for free’ a recent up-to-date user space without too much work, and we stick to LTS kernel to avoid forcing our users to rebase their kernel work too often.
