Why upgrade the Linux Kernel?
 

I use Debian Buster, Kali, and Ubuntu.

I've been upgrading my Debian Kernel versions to 5.6 and everything's working fine.

But I realize that I just upgraded them without knowing specifically why doing so would help my systems...


So now I'm asking all of you that question here in this thread:

Why should you upgrade your Linux Kernel?


If I used any incorrect terminology in this thread please correct me. The reason I'm posting this thread is because I just want to learn more and expand my knowledge of how these systems work.


Thanks in advance for your time and info!

Why upgrade the Linux Kernel?
 

The biggest reason nowadays would be for hardware support.

Other than that, there probably isn't much reason to upgrade a decently running kernel. In fact, you probably wouldn't do it without good reason. The systems you're using are quite complicated and easy to break, so I'd avoid it.

In simpler times, we'd do it for sport... but those days are long gone.

Here's the changes summarized:

https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_5.6

I always work on the principle of taking what I've given — I suspect the distro's developers know more that I do! If a distro offers a new kernel as an update I obviously accept it, but I've never sought out a new kernel for myself. Now I'm using a rolling-release distro, I get a regular flow of them!

That is interesting. You use Kali, so you need to know what does vulnerability mean. Usually we upgrade kernel when an improvement, a patch or a bugfix is released.

A good way to learn things is to search, then read the results. :)

The search on LQ is terrible, but it does work sometimes - "upgrade linux kernel" brought up the thread from a couple of weeks back where this topic was discussed:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...el-4175678507/

+1 #4
Running CentOS 7. Get kernel updates every 4-6 weeks. Test on my home desktop, then apply to the production box.

I fixed two typos, I think?
If that is what you meant, I'm fully behind you.

There's also the LTS kernel, most distros have it in their repos, many by default.

Kernel contributors work on many if not every aspect of a kernel code and they do it for a number of reasons.

One is security issues.

Another is as above, hardware support.

Now there are also improvements to every aspect of the OS from how it performs using file systems to graphics and memory and so on and so on.
You normally want security and speed/stability improvements even if you don't require hardware improvements.

I guess the LTS kernel is a step in that direction.

Any OS will evtl. loose functionality if the underlying kernel never gets updated. It just takes longer than with other parts of the system.

I think it helps for folks to understand what a kernel update is. While one can look at kernel.org for all changes you may not get those in a distro kernel.
Anyone who wants to know what is in an update ought to review the errata and changes for each kernel. They might be impressed at all the changes that go into them.