Which Kernel to target when considering system stability?

I noticed the default PkgName in the Simple kernel manager is core/linux and core/linux-headers rather than the LTS equivalent. This resulted in a kernel upgrade to 6.2.1 today. While I didn’t have any issues with it, is it generally considered safer to use the LTS kernel and headers?

Depends on what you mean by “safe”.

If your hardware is older, likely there’s already support in all kernels. Thus newer kernels only would be beneficial for features that help.

If your hardware is newer, there may or may not be support, and if something appears in the latest kernel, you’d probably want to see if your device or audio/video works.

There may be other points that others can add.

Thanks for the insight. I guess what I mean is that, if all my hardware is currently functioning as expected, is it more likely for there to be a regression if I’m updating the kernel whenever a new stable version is available? I assume that the LTS versions are not updated nearly as frequently.

The LTS kernels are updated often, because a lot of fixes are backported. For example, the 4.14 kernel already has 307 minor versions.

Just stick with the latest LTS kernel (6.1), if you want a bit more stability and don’t need features from 6.2. But in the end, if something works on a newer kernel, it’s just as good. Important fixes for regressions and security vulnaribilities will land on every supported kernel.

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