The Latest Kernel Release.
 

As suggested by Monsieur Didier Spaier, a Slackware Forum thread dedicated to Linux kernel release testing.


The 4.4.43 kernel has been released.

The change log, https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...angeLog-4.4.43


Also, the 4.9.4 kernel has been issued. Still no word on whether or not it will be the next long term release.

The change log, https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...hangeLog-4.9.4

Thanks Cwiz' I'm inclined to agree: a dedicated thread for us "kernel watchers" is probably better than littering the current-requests thread with kernel news.


Right then... Off to build 4.9.4 I go!...


P.S. FWIW, 4.9.y series has proven solid for me so far.

Announcing Dave's Unofficial SlackBuilt Kernels -- https://blog.idlemoor.tk/dusk/

4.4.43 for x86_64 is already available at https://dusk.idlemoor.tk/linux-4.4/x86_64/
The others (4.4.43 for i686, and 4.9.4 for x86_64 and i686) should follow in the next couple of hours

This is entirely automatic and still quite experimental. Testing? I've heard of it. Feedback welcome ;)

A configs/ directory on that site would be a nice addition. :)

Haha, I literally just built 4.9.3 this morning, upgrading from the last 4.8 release. Oh well, at least I don't have to go through choosing features in the 'make oldconfig' process again. :)

PS Don't ask me why I'm keeping up with the latest kernel release. I guess I just enjoy it for some reason.

Me too! :D

Man, I just upgraded to 4.4.42 yesterday evening. lol :)

Swell, I just finished building and installing 4.4.43...My guess is that 4.4.44 and 4.9.5 will be released next week...

Edit,
I'm going to stick with kernel 4.4.x since the proprietary legacy nVidia R340 drivers/modules won't build on kernel 4.9.x.

MFW I see Greg releasing a new stable kernel just after three days from the previous one with the note: "All users of the 4.9 kernel series must upgrade."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVv7o1ePo4U

Same here.

Hi , for me , the only good branch is 4.10 in rc series at time.

Cause 4.4.x NO HAVE GTX 1000 SERIES native support in nouveau , only vesa.
4.8 - 4.9 BUG , in cursor (patched in 4.10) , i waiting to see that patch is backported to 4.9.x series cause read probably this go to LTS.

My card is GTX 1070...is knowed bug , but patched only in 4.10.

Looks like 4.9 will be an LTS.
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/...-kroah-hartman

https://fossbytes.com/its-confirmed-...kernel-branch/

Contrary to both of those articles, it hasn't been confirmed yet. Kroah-Hartman basically stated that the plan is for 4.9 to be LTS back in August, giving developers plenty of time to finalize what they want in the kernel. But in the past, this has lead to developers trying to push unfinished code that doesn't belong in an LTS just so it can be in there. Kroah-Hartman said that if developers don't throw crap into 4.9, it'll likely be LTS, but if they do, he'll likely pick either 4.8 or 4.10. As far as I've found, he hasn't said any more on the topic since August (and I do some minor searches every week or so since the 4.9 stable dropped).

(Emphasis mine)

4.8 series gets EOL , then 4.9 or 4.10 i hope 4.10 :=)

I think this thread should be made sticky.

Running 4.9.3 using the config wih debian patches from linux-source-4.9 (4.9.2-2) trimmed as much as understood and could safely do so, for my laptop..seems to be working great except for the random mouse and keyboard freezes when streaming videos..wonder if i should wait for an upgrade to the source before compiling for 4.9.4. Also, is 4.9 gong to be LTS or not, nobody seems to know for sure, Greg-Hartman's blog, if it's genuine said it was..

Edit: Oops, sorry to intrude, saw something about the kernel and jumped right in without thinking, have been a little on edge running the unstable version of Debian, my apologies.

Nobody knows until Kroah-Hartman announces if he will make 4.9 LTS... last update I could find was in August when he stated his intention on making 4.9 LTS if developers don't add a bunch of "crud" into it just to make the LTS. Now we just need to wait until he decides if there's minimal enough "crud" for him to make it LTS.

Running 4.9.4, with a hand-rolled .config file: no issues so far.

Release candidate 4 of the 4.10 kernel has been issued, https://www.kernel.org

well, it seems in the end he felt like stating it explicitly.

Thank you Ponce!
:hattip:

Yes, it is official.

https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html

I figured he would do it soon. Hopefully we see a config in testing/ soon :) (or an actual 4.9 kernel in -current)

I'm lazy and just want to wait for Pat's config before I upgrade my system. I missed some new features in the 3.18 kernel (mainly overlayfs) that caused me to rebuild it once Pat's config came out, so I don't want a repeat. He seems to have the eye to get all the pertinent options.

v4.4.44 & v4.9.5 are out.

Thanks GazL.

commit b9d6631395a1e25b210ce112b1bc10f3c665ea20 in Linux 4.4.44 fixes CVE-2016-919 and
commit 3490e72ad6d02cf396894d1139dc800e1d9fca83 fixes CVE-2017-2584


Building a local version here but maybe an official Slackware 14.2 update is in order ?

-- kjh

I don't know what Pat will do. I'm surprised he's stayed with 4.4 in current this long, but I'll be moving to 4.10 when it comes out anyway, so it doesn't bother me either way.

Anyway, fwiw, 4.9.5 running ok here.

GazL --

I am still on 14.2 ... I imagine Pat will stay with 4.4.x there.

I actually missed a CVE in the grep command ... there is a third CVE fixed
by commit 816307c80d4ddad5414a05ff5861f063d29cda6f ...

-- kjh

Ahh, silly me, yes. I'm so used to following current that I sometimes forget that the stable release even exists. :doh:

Unofficial 4.4.44 and 4.9.5 now up at https://dusk.idlemoor.tk -- I don't intend to spam this thread every time, but as suggested by GazL (thanks!), there's also now a config directory, and the config is now included with the other gubbins in each kernel dir. For 4.9.5 the configs are completely unoffical, but derived from the 4.6 config in testing/.

Thanks Dave. I'm sure many folks will find them useful given how often I've seen people ask for them in the forum.

I just posted a note in the Slackware-security thread about the CVE-fixes in 4.4.44.

Some of the changes in the 4.9.5 kernel:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/linux...s-512050.shtml

4.9.5 work perfectly here, now ;)

Ditto, been using 4.9.x for a while now on a laptop with Slackware 14.2, no issues so far.

I've been running 4.9.5 for a few days now and the Intel graphics support is great.

The 4.10-rc5 mainline kernel is available for testing,
https://www.kernel.org/

Is the unofficial Kernel built as if it was done by Slackware Devs? What I mean, do you use the same commands/flags etc...? Are they equivalent to each other? I normally don't play around with the kernel.

The commands are really all the same.

There is some wiggle room with that and additional things you can do, but those are the basic commands to build a kernel.

David (55020) has automated this process and instead of installing kernels manually, he generates Slackware packages for them. As with normal kernel packages, it is generally recommended to installpkg the new kernels rather than upgradepkg so if the new kernels don't work, you can boot into your old one. You'll still need to edit your bootloader configs with these packages.

The main difference would be in the configs used to build the kernel as each major series can see substantial changes to the options in the config. For these, David took the 4.6 kernel config that Pat provided in testing/ and modified it the best he could to 4.9's options. It is likely what he thinks is similar to what Pat would/will provide if/when he provides configs for 4.9 (whether that is just configs in testing/ or actually new kernels in -current, we'll need to wait and see). However, it seems he is only providing generic configs, so you'll be on your own if you don't want an initrd. (Pat highly suggests running generic kernels over huge and only provides huge as a starting point.)

bassmadrigal, Thanks!!!!!

I'm going to download and install them. I'll report back any errors or not. Thanks again.
I wish more was as helpful and polite as you. You seem to be a meek individual. Off to test and thanks to David (55020).

P.S

I don't see the kernel firmware package. Is it needed?

That's a good question. The linux-firmware package isn't really part of the kernel (note the name). It isn't tied to a particular version of the kernel, it doesn't even have releases. Patrick puts out a new snapshot in -current occasionally, which you might have a specific need for if you have new hardware. Otherwise it's easy to forget it's even there, which is just the way I like it.

Thanks for trying my unofficial kernel packages, but let's not forget that the official kernel packages are curated by the best man in the business.

The 4.4.45 kernel has been released.
The change log, https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...angeLog-4.4.45

And, a new version of the newest LTS kernel, 4.9.6.
The change log, https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...hangeLog-4.9.6

These kernels fixes CVE-2016-7097:

If you care about security you mount your user-writable filesystems with "nosuid,nodev" anyway. Given how problematic non-root owned SUID/SGID executables are in general I'm not convinced the existence of this vulnerability makes them any worse.

55020 --

Thanks for sharing your .config files !

Building 4.9.6.kjh now and will try it out this weekend.

-- kjh

followup ...

Linux 4.9.6 built and booted fine using 55020's .config

I ran NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-375.26.run and it built and installed fine and KDE ran and looked great.

However, I use VMWare Workstation 12.5.x, mostly so I can read Outlook Email on a Win7 VM for work.

VMWare won't compile the necessary Kernel Modules without the 4.9.6 Kernel Headers.

I suppose I could install the Kernel Headers and rebuild the dependencies ( :) ? just about everything ? :) ) but that dog won't hunt on my main Laptop for Work :(

I suppose I am 'stuck' with 4.4.x for now ...

Thanks again for sharing those .configs 55020 !

-- kjh

I've no experience of VMware but I was under the impression that the correct approach for out of tree modules is to compile them against /lib/modules/$kernel-release/build/include rather than the headers in /usr/include.

Thanks GazL

Yes, after noting that /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/source and /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build are symlinks to /usr/src/$(uname -r)/

I was wondering the same thing: i.e. whether I could reinstall VMWare and maybe somehow override /usr/include/linux/ with /usr/src/$(uname -r)/include/ ...

However, that's for another day :)

-- kjh

55020, thanks a lot for config-4.9!

Since you provide kernel-headers-4.9, I'd like to ask: does it mean that you suggest to install it?

I know the standard view that
(see, e.g., http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla...eaders_package)

On the other hand:

There's also the option to create a .config based on your system. When you make -localmodconfig the running modules on your system are used as basis for the config. This way you get a streamlined kernel with only support for hardware you have. Before you do this you must make sure you've connected everything you'll need (like USB sticks/external drives with filesystems you use, your webcam, everything you use needs to be there or it won't be included. You even need a DVD/CD in your drive or it won't work.). This greatly reduces the compile time. Since you leave out everything you don't need.

Mainline kernel 4.10-rc6 has been released for testing,
https://www.kernel.org/

It is the biggest release candidate of the 4.10 series to date.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/linus...r-512353.shtml

v4.9.7 and v4.4.46 are out.