I ran into the NVIDIA blob problem with 3.7.1 yesterday and, for now, just went back to 3.2.29. OTOH, seeing how many people are running it, I'm trying to decide whether it's really worth upgrading or not, especially since Linus has gone back to using odd minor version numbers to mean dev versions (like it was back in pre-2.4).

My question to all my fellow slackers is, what does 3.7 give me over 3.2? Things I know or am guessing right now:

1. Major upgrade to btrfs; however, with the recent trouble, I decided to stick with ext4, so this shouldn't affect me.

2. (Just discovered last night) Lots of new optimization targets, including the AMD Bobcat-containing E300 we have here at work. (Only applies if compiling your own kernel.) However my own machines are all several years old, so this doesn't apply to my personal equipment.

That's all I can think of at the moment. My laptop uses an old NVIDIA IGP, and while Nouveau works on it, it's somewhat slow and, much more important, sucks several times more power than running the blob (once X is loaded); this is an even bigger problem with Nouveau since you're forced to use the frame buffer vs the text console (and I personally really hate the FB console). I doubt Nouveau's power management has improved in that short time.

Thanks for any and all replies!

Mike

There are a lot of improvement since Linux Kernel 3.2.x compared to 3.7.x. I usually looked at KernelNewbies since it's more human-friendly than looking at the RAW changelog

For NVidia blob problem, you might need a patch that has been described on my blog if you are using NVidia 304.64 driver

Was this officially announced anywhere? Just curious.

Yeah, 3.6.x was EOL'd when 3.7.1 came out...

Besides, every kernel is a 'dev' version anyway... though some get long term support.

Correct. And a kernel gets long term support if and only if a volunteer steps up to set up a stable branch. Those volunteers are usually from Redhat, SUSE and the like.