Does anyone know what happened to the Arch kernels?
Both the regular kernel as well as the Linux-zen Kernel are outdated in stable. The version is 5.12.15 since July 9th while upstream is already at 5.12.19.
The version in testing is 5.13.1 since July 10th, while upstream is already at 5.13.4.
The maintainer did update some packages on July 16th but kernels are still untouched.
I found nothing regarding currently delayed kernels on the arch forums, but maybe there are some other channels that I don’t see with an explanation.
Its worrying that such essential packages are more or less ignored while in the last years, they usually were updated (at least on testing) on the same day that upstream released them.
Edit: He updated 2 other packages today, lets hope that kernels are also updated … False thought, he is the maintainer of those packages but did not do todays updates.
well, like written, testing is already on 5.13.1 - but it did not see the updates to .2, .3 and .4
and he updated some packages on 16th, when 5.13.2 was already out for 2 days.
Kernels are security relevant, one person taking days off should not lead to them not being updated, especially on such a big project like arch.
My understanding of that is that if there is a vulnerability that warrants addressing someone would step-in. Not every kernel point release addresses important vulnerabilities. Are you aware of any critical vulnerabilities in that point series?
I don’t know that every single point release is always put out? I thought sometimes they just move to the next kernel release if it’s that close and all is good?
I already am on testing. but like mentioned in the OP, even testing is 3 point releases behind …
at least 5.13.3 and 5.12.18 fixed a CVE, yes, no critical one, but still
of course when a new major series is released, they stop updates to the old one as soon as the new one is appearing in testing. That happened 10 days ago on July 10, already with a 13 day delay (5.13 was released on June 27). Since then, testing has missed 2 releases, 3 with todays release, and stable missed 3 releases, 4 with todays.
5.14 is at least 5 weeks away, so they really should not wait for that.
Edit: Just to make sure, I don’t blame heftig for not updating THE core package of the arch distribution. At this point, it is relatively obvious that he has some issues that prevent him from updating it. I blame the other Arch maintainers for not taking over, and wanted to know if there is any information that I missed that explains why they don’t update the kernel.
Pushing kernel updates is not something to be rushed, unless there are known vulnerabilities that urgently need to be fixed.
I’m glad they are taking their time to thoroughly test everything.
Personally, I find this whining about not having the latest kernel version in the repos a bit silly. If they pushed the kernel updates sooner and caused systems to break, that would cause even more whining (probably from the same people). It’s “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” I think Arch repo maintainers are doing a great work. Arch has a great combination of package freshness and system stability.
a sign of live, someone else has taken over and updated the linux - kernel package. No sign of live on the linux-zen package though, but that’s ok.
I am sorry for taking the arch promise by the word:
Arch strives to stay bleeding edge
Simply ignoring kernel releases for weeks is not bleeding edge. I would totally be on your side if they would have updated testing regularly, and decided that it is not yet ready for stable. But they have not done anything with those kernel releases in testing (or staging) either.
They definitely won’t be seeing any donations from my side in the near future until I am sure they are back on track again with the update frequency of essential packages
