Kernel Linux updating

[Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:23:57 +0200, "Mylene Josserand" said:

> And we encountered some problems (about CAN controller to be precise). 
> In the CAN mailist, Luka Rahne has the same problem has ours with the 
> 3.0.3 kernel. He tested the 3.0.81 and the problem seems to be gone. So, 
> also, I wanted to know if the possibly fix between 3.0.3 and 3.0.81 
> would have been spreaded to other kernels ? other long term ? stable ?

In general, fixes do *not* show up in kernel.org stable or longerm
kernels until they've been committed to the mainline.  So as an example,
if the patch that fixed your CAN issue was in 3.6, it would also be in
3.7 and any other kernels.  It would also show up in (most of) the
stable and longterm kernels released after 3.6 (in other words, if the
next 3.0 after the 3.6 release date was 3.0.45, then the fix would be
in .45 and later).

Note that there *is* a danger in using older 3.whatever longterm kernels.
For instance, the 3.0 stream is now approaching 2.5 years old, and there's
been a *lot* of code changes since.  So it's becoming increasingly likely
that if there was a new bug found that affected 3.0 and later, that the
fix wouldn't be backported (for instance, a 3.9 fix that uses an API added
in 3.6 will be difficult to backport to 3.0).

The situation is different with distro kernels, which *will* often
backport that sort of thing.  Consult with your distro vendor for details :)
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