The return of Linux kernel metapackages, linux-latest, and linux-lts

[viggy96]

But it still ends up doing a very similar thing to the previous metapackages. It automates the upgrade of the kernel, when a kernel is dropped. Presumably when 6.10 is dropped, linux-meta will then point to 6.11 right? And it will then install kernel 6.11 onto users’ machines. That’s exactly what the previous metapackages did.

This linux-meta package might do it at a different point in time than the previous metapackages did, but it still does the same action.

So I don’t understand how the previous argument can hold for automating kernel upgrades, but not now for this metapackage.

Will linux-latest or linux-lts metapackages ever return?

Think again. If your system breaks due to a package like linux-latest - who would you blame - I know who. You would flame against the packager and the distribution which made your workstation stall due to a kernel replacement and you would have to spend several hours - if inexperienced, even days - to get it back online. I think the idea was good - but it also created a heap of other issues - probably why the idea was abandoned.

Is the argument that users for some reason won’t “flame the packager and distribution” for breaking your system due to a kernel change because linux-meta only updates the kernel when one goes EOL, and by then the next kernel should theoretically be mature?