Because of not using LTS kernels in the installation ISOs, many Manjaro users are running EOL kernels

Ben, can’t understand you:

You cited the @flux’s post.

The user have in their profile:

CPU: 8 × Intel® Core™ i5-8265U CPU @ 1.60GHz

and you answered to their post


But a bit later you told opposite:

Or may be I lost in thread?

Same here. I couldn’t get Cudy/Realtek wifi USB dongle to be recognized with anything newer than 5.13, having tried them (from 5.8 through 5.15) in succession.

So I’d feel anxious about moving to a later kernel release without knowing how to fix. Being new to Manjaro/Arch’s rolling release philosophy, the more noobs like me can learn about the kernel release life cycle the better.

This forum is remarkable - but a bit hard to get one’s hands around at first. A few strolls around the categories didn’t reveal any clear guidance/FAQs on this topic - perhaps I’ve just missed them?

Any suggestions on where to go to get up to speed on kernel selection/issues in Manjaro-world would be appreciated.

@alven I did not say the opposite. I said the same thing twice, the second time with more detail. Read these back-to-back.

Sorry everybody, I’ve updated my profile.

This is very new hardware which came with 21.1.5 Pahvo pre-installed.

@flux, you should be fine switching to 5.15 after the next stable update, or you could switch to testing now. 5.15.2 still has some issues with Intel graphics. For an 11th Generation/Tiger Lake CPU, I would not recommend Linux 5.10.

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I can confirm that! Linux 5.4 LTS is a much better alternative.

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Every time I install Manjaro, one of the first steps is to install a second kernel (an LTS kernel). I suggest doing this every time you install
And the wiki suggests that too :wink:
So I would prefer that the following standard be used when installing Manjaro:

  • Install the latest stable kernel (for brand new hardware users)
  • also install the next stable LTS kernel (for security and in case of boot problems)

For btrfs users: btrfs has been stable for a long time. There are functions that are not stable. But that has to do with RAID5 / 6 and deduplication and things like that. These functions are used by far less than 1% of btrfs users. There is no need to have 5.15 instead of 5.10 because of changes in btrfs

Writing it in the wiki is good. Doing it at installation is better

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I don’t get it either. Does not compute.

Is my CPU old enough to buy beer? :beer: :crazy_face:

How does old enough equate to very well supported on Linux? Aged to perfection like a good whiskey?

I understood “old enough” to mean that this cpu was already around when 5.10 was released and that is why it is “very well supported” by that kernel series.

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My problem is that I understood the

Your CPU is old enough to work fine with 5.10.

as
“Your CPU is old enough to expect that it able to work fine with 5.10”.
So “too old CPU for the 5.10”/“weakly supported by 5.10”.

But English is not my first language.

After Benjamin told that he meant, I understood that he meant good support, but I did not understood the phrase was used for this (my grammar issue?).

Honestly… I think shipping 2 different ISOs would be best. One with LTS kernels for most people, and one with the most current kernel for folks using newer GPUs/CPUs. The latter is because for newer hardware, it won’t even boot into the LiveISO on LTS kernels.

And on the download page, we can differentiate them. Like for the one with the most current kernel, we can mention that it is best for newer bleeding edge hardware.

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Possible issues could be found then to try to describe to a new user how to choose right ISO image to use - during writing this
note → (after some time improved to) →
notes → (after some time and use cases realized improved to) →
whole answer → (after some time improved to include all use cases) →
article → (after some time improved to theory of computing) →
book,
may be some disadvantages of that splitting could be found, may be not.

Um… it doesn’t sound that hard…?

LTS (Kernel 5.10) ISO
This ISO should work for most hardware and computer setups, unless you are using bleeding edge hardware. If it does not work for your setup, please try using Stable Mainline ISO.

Stable Mainline (Kernel 5.15) ISO
Please use this ISO if you are using current generation GPUs & CPUs, or if Kernel LTS (5.10) ISO does not work for your setup.

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Well that’s exactly what we have for the minimal ISOs (currently 5.13 and 5.4 LTS), but we don’t have an LTS version of the full system ISO. That is missing.

Personally, I’d rather the minimal ISOs were dropped. It’s subjective what is included, and people can always remove unwanted packages for themselves. The devs could then ship “current” and “LTS” versions of the full system ISO. That would be 2 ISOs total, not 3 as now.

Important to note however that “current” does not mean latest. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, my own very new hardware works fine with 5.13 (current ISO), but not yet with 5.14 or 5.15 (stable branch versions).

Or instead, have an option in Calamares to install minimal or full. manjaro-architect has an option to install minimal or full. Our ISO profiles on GitLab already has them differentiated.

Please be careful to do not mess the threads you want to post in.
The next idea comes from completely another thread (Testers needed: Manjaro KDE massive cleanup/rename - #46 by LordTermor):

I have some idea to introduce “app sets” which will show you some predefined applications for a particular task/work. Like “Programming”, “Video Editing”, “Digital painting” etc. So yakuake could make it there. As well as Krita. …

So may be it is possible to include both kernels into single “shiny image”: last stable and LTS kernels, software sets by categories, and minimal/ordinary switches.

But I think it is not easy to implement and it has not a high priority to do, so not in nearest future. Also Team could not release it without comprehensive testing and bug reporting, so that’s why Team need experienced users to help and subscribe to first post in the QA forum category and I believe that’s why the Manjaro Telemetry has high priority to implement.

The Team can’t release half-working product, they are trying to improve and polish it all using resources they have: people, their expertise level, hardware, time to do best they can and to implement it from highest to lowest priority.
So may be in some future we can get a super iso, but high priority things first.

It is not the conclusion of the thread, but only my point of view (which is not perfect of course, as I can’t predict everything): just tried to see more possible fixes for many cases.

One of them:

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What a welcoming experience ha ha :laughing:
I am 100% sure ISOs must be built using LTS kernels only.
No offense I just imagined myself being in this situation and yes, this would have puzzled me too.

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The latest ISO’s are provided with LTS kernels.

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