linux-kernel - Re: 5.10 LTS Kernel: 2 or 6 years?

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Date:   Thu, 18 Feb 2021 17:19:54 +0000
From:   Jari Ruusu <jariruusu@...tonmail.com>
To:     Willy Tarreau <w@....eu>
Cc:     Jari Ruusu <jariruusu@...rs.sourceforge.net>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Scott Branden <scott.branden@...adcom.com>,
        Linux ARM <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        BCM Kernel Feedback <bcm-kernel-feedback-list@...adcom.com>
Subject: Re: 5.10 LTS Kernel: 2 or 6 years?

On Thursday, February 18, 2021 4:33 PM, Willy Tarreau <w@....eu> wrote:
> Usually you pick an LTS kernel for a specific hardware. If it
> works that's great. But you cannot expect hardware to suddenly start to
> work in the middle of a stable kernel. Sometimes it happens (PCI IDs) but
> that's basically all and that's not their purpose.

It was the other way around. Fine working in-tree driver got
broken by backported "fixes". I did mention bit-rot.

In-tree iwlwifi worked half-ok on early 4.9.y stable. If
connection somehow de-autheticated (out of radio range or
whatever) it crashed the kernel spectacularly. Eventually that was
fixed and in-tree iwlwifi worked fine on 4.9.y and 4.14.y stable
kernels. On second half of year 2020 (don't remember exactly when)
iwlwifi started causing erratic behavior when some random process
terminated, as if some exit processing left some resources
un-freed or something weird like that. Upgraded to 4.19.y kernels
in hope to fix the issue. Nope, same problems continued there as
well. Replacing in-tree iwlwifi with out-of-tree upstream Intel
version solved the problem for me.

--
Jari Ruusu  4096R/8132F189 12D6 4C3A DCDA 0AA4 27BD  ACDF F073 3C80 8132 F189