Funtoo 1.4 - No update to gentoo-sources?

[hhhhardware]

I'm wrapping up my upgrade to Funtoo 1.4 but noticing there has not been an upgrade to the sys-kernel/gentoo-sources. I know debian-sources are Daniels preferred kernel sources but I would have assumed the more recent meta-repo freeze would have pulled in a newer kernel/gentoo-sources than the one I had in Funtoo 1.3.

In the future are the only kernel sources that are going to be updated in the repository going to be debian-sources?

[calrama]

Quote

In the future are the only kernel sources that are going to be updated in the repository going to be debian-sources?

See related: https://bugs.funtoo.org/browse/FL-6035

To the best of my knowledge nothing about this has changed in 1.4. Only debian-sources(-lts) are officially supported. Unfortunately, the other sources are not masked despite being unsupported.

[tux]

I also would prefer synced up-to-date masked gentoo-sources, but we can always PR flora repo to add them. Since its not officially supported it up to the community to maintain them. I made a PR for stables amd64 4.19.x since I'm using it.

I think we can make a mostly automated workflow to PR trivial ebuilds (I mean those that require just a copy-paste from gentoo). Will try to do that on some ebuilds like stable amd64 gentoo-sources, vivaldi and php I'm using.

[drobbins]

@tux @hhhhardware I am open to auto-updating gentoo-sources (maybe masked by default). Submit a bug report and I'll see what I can do.

[tux]

@drobbins there is this one already https://bugs.funtoo.org/browse/FL-6035

If merge scripts allow it, maybe you can auto-insert an ewarn in pgk_setup/pkg_postinst ebuild to warn users ?

[drobbins]

@tuxbut keep it unmasked, you mean?

[tux]

Yes, it can be a more user friendly approach than masking.

I understand a masked pkg as a package that will fails to install or may break the system. I think it's not relevant for unofficial kernels like gentoo-sources.

[drobbins]

I tend to agree. Maybe we mask the other kernels that frankly most users never touch. But it seems best to keep gentoo-sources unmasked, but maybe add a warning to it. WIll see if I can modify an eclass to do this.

[bcowan]

I just want to say that gentoo-sources, that is not the LTS version which is currently 4.19 series, is basically mainline and all sorts of bad things can happen or regressions/corruptions/data loss is at a much greater percentage of being introduced. Breakage of nvidia-drivers/modules being a big one. Also you're following a kernel series that *will* be updated at least once a week if not more.Other patchsets have much better hardware support, backporting, bugfixes, and out of tree inclusions that really make the quality of life better all around for a normal linux user. Just my two cents.

[walterw]

Hi - has there been any update to updating gentoo-sources in 1.4?  I use gentoo-sources.

What is the advantage of debian-sources over gentoo-sources, stability, security?

What is the advantage of gentoo-sources over debian-sources, speed?

 

Thanks,

Walter

[drobbins]

@walterw the advantages of debian-sources-lts are numerous and I'll go into more detail below but the primary reason to use this kernel is that debian-sources-lts IS SUPPORTED, and gentoo-sources IS NOT so you should not really use it with Funtoo. I know lots of people just assume they can start using Funtoo just like they were using Gentoo, but I encourage you to use Funtoo as it is intended to be used, and that is with the debian-sources-lts kernel.

The advantages of debian-sources-lts:

1. It generally doesn't randomly break things due to API changes in the kernel, since it's a 'long term stable' kernel.
2. It's faster (optimized for your arch by default)
3. It has the latest CVEs and fixes for Intel side-channel attacks and it is updated frequently, like around once a month.
4. It is ready for use in production, such as on servers in datacenters. This is a huge benefit.
5. It is compatible with NVIDIA drivers and doesn't require these to have special patches to work.
6. It is Debian's kernel and as their stable kernel it is tested by thousands of people, a lot more than test gentoo-sources.
7. It's the one used by the majority of Funtoo users so it is also tested in Funtoo as well. Much less likely to experience problems. It is the kernel *I* use on my laptop, workstations, and also used on Funtoo servers. So that means something I think.
8. It comes pre-built on stage3 tarballs. Massively speeds up install on new systems. Not a minor benefit.
9. If you use it and build it with USE='binary' (the default), things will 'just work' because this is a full modular kernel and has all common functionality enabled. If you use your own kernel, often you will need to recompile to enable some feature you forgot, and things might not work (virtualbox, random package that uses a kernel feature). Quite a few bugs on the bug tracker and problems on the support forums are tracked to 'different custom kernel'.

So I think the advantages are numerous. The reason you should not use gentoo-sources is that I don't think you can say any of these things about gentoo-sources. When using a kernel where you can't afford it to be flaky, it is best to build on a vetted kernel and debian-sources-lts is just plain vetted to a much more significant degree.

EDIT: the result of all these benefits are: more stability and less time wasted.

[walterw]

@drobbins

Thanks for the information - I will make the switch now.

 

Thanks,

Walter