On 2024-04-17, Michael <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > But, to get back to the beginning of this discussion: if there is a
>> > risk that my aging hardware possibly can less and less cope with
>> > newer and newer kernels, should I put something like
>> >
>> > >=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.7.0
>> >
>> > into file "package.mask" to stay with "longterm" 6.6.* kernels?
>>
>> Yes: if you want to avoid getting upgraded to 6.8 when it gets
>> kernel.org "longterm" status and gentoo-sources "stable" status, then
>> a statement like that in in package.mask will keep you on
>> gentoo-sources 6.6 kernels (which are "longterm" on kernel.org).
> I am not sure the assumption "... aging hardware possibly can less and less
> cope with newer and newer kernels" is correct.
Good point. My "yes" was in response to a question of the form "if X
is true, should I do Y". I did not attempt to address the likelyhood
that X was actually ture, only whether Y was appropriate if X was
true.
> As already mentioned newer kernels have both security and bug fixes.
> As long as you stick with stable gentoo-sources you'll have these in
> your system. Later kernels also come with additional kernel drivers
> for new(er) hardware. You may not need/want these drivers if you do
> not run the latest hardware. Using 'make oldconfig' allows you to
> exclude such new drivers, but include new security options and/or
> functionality as desired.
>
> It can happen for new code to introduce some software regression.
The usual worries with running newer kernels on older hardware are:
1) Performance degradation when upgrading kernels on older hardware.
On one embedded project I work with we're still running a 2.6
kernel because network throughput drops by 25-30% when we upgrade
to 3.x kernels. There's nothing "wrong" with those 3.x kernels,
they're just bigger and significantly slower. [Even when built
with a config that's as identical to the 2.6 kernels as possible.]
2) Lack of support for old hardware when running a newer kernels.
I used to run into this when running nvidia-drivers.
Gentoo-sources would mark a new kernel stable, but my video board
would not be supported by nvidia-drivers versions that were
supported for that new stable kernel. I would mask newer kernels
until and run older "longterm" kernels as long as I could. I would
evenually be forced to buy a new video card. After going through
that cycle a couple times, I swore off NVidia video cards and
life's been much eaiser since.
