About kernel upgrade

Hello!

I installed Manjaro yesterday and I am really loving it. This community, moreover, is fantastic! :slight_smile:

But, I have a little newbie question, and would be very grateful to hear your opinions.

My OS was installed with the kernel 5.15.76… But Manjaro keeps me warning about new kernels available and suggesting me to upgrade.

My question is: it’s recommended to upgrade? If so, what version do I need to choose, please?

Thanks in advance.

The 5.15 kernel is a long-term-support kernel, which means that it will continue receiving bug fixes and security fixes for quite a while still while kernels with a higher version number are being developed and released.

By default, the matray applet will notify you of the release of such later kernels — you can disable this in its settings — but if you’re running 5.15.76-1, then you are already fully up-to-date with regard to the 5.15 LTS kernels, because 5.15.76-1 is the current 5.15 LTS kernel in Manjaro Stable.

If you wish to stay with this kernel generation for as long as it’s supported, then you also don’t need to take any special precautions, because updating your system in the normal manner will also automatically update the kernel and any of the proprietary video and/or network drivers for said kernel.

LTS kernels are supported for several years, but some people want to have a kernel with a higher version number — often for reasons that don’t even make any sense — but non-LTS mainline kernels are relatively short-lived in terms of support, and so when a newer mainline kernel gets released, the kernel in use is bound to soon become deprecated and be dropped from the repositories. In that case, you will also get a warning to upgrade your kernel, but this warning will then commonly appear as part of the normal update process.

For now, 5.15 isn’t about to become deprecated any day soon, so you’re safe, as long as you keep your system up-to-date through the normal means. :wink:

1 Like

Hi,

Many, many thanks for your support and kindness. :slight_smile:

I understood. I’ll keep the current kernel.

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