Linux Kernel 5.xx support

[Ahsan041]

I am aware that central 8 supports 4.18 Linux . I want to use the kernel 5.10. The reason I am asking this is because I need to use centos 8 stream,

[TrevorH]

The kernel that comes with each major version of RHEL (and thus CentOS) is always the same for the entire 10 year lifespan of the distro. Red Hat picked 4.18.0 for RHEL 8 and it will be 4.18.0-something right up until it goes EOL in 2029.

Other kernels may work or may not but they are not supported. The ELRepo third party yum repo provides kernel-ml (mainline) kernel packages that follow the very latest and greatest available from Linus. They also have a kermel-lt package set that is newer but more stable.

Why do you want kernel 5.10?

[jlehtone]

The kernel that comes with each major version of RHEL (and thus CentOS) is always the same for the entire 10 year lifespan of the distro. Red Hat picked 4.18.0 for RHEL 8 and it will be 4.18.0-something right up until it goes EOL in 2029.

Furthermore, CentOS Linux 8 has whatever RHEL 8 has and CentOS Stream 8 will too, since Stream 8 is essentially a preview of next RHEL 8 point update.
There will be Stream 9 in (near?) future.

ELRepo's kernel-lt and kernel-ml do install on CentOS Linux, but is there any guarantee that they do on Stream?


Btw, I was just seeking something from old RHEL Release Notes and saw in 8.2's notes:
"The Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel graphics subsystem has been rebased to upstream Linux kernel version 5.3."

That is, the RHEL/CentOS 4.18.0-something already contains features backported from upstream kernel 5.


The "need to use" and "want to use" do indeed crave for rationale.

[Mike_Rochefort]

Red Hat regularly backports upstream features (if valuable for customers) and bugfixes into their kernel. The EL8 kernel was branched from 4.18, but you'd be hard pressed to call it a 4.18 kernel at this point. Is there a specific feature introduced in 5.10 that you are looking for?

You have the options of:

* submitting a bugzilla request (links in my signature) to see if the feature you're looking for exists/ask for it to be added, or
* using the kernel-ml package from ELRepo (kernel-lt is still using 5.4), or
* compiling the kernel yourself

Otherwise wait for further CentOS Stream 9 announcements (should be some soon, mirrors are currently being created) which currently has kernel 5.14 as its base if you don't have a hard requirement on EL8.

Cheers,
Mike

[TrevorH]

Otherwise wait for further CentOS Stream 9 announcements (should be some soon, mirrors are currently being created) which currently has kernel 5.14 as its base if you don't have a hard requirement on EL8.

I don't think that using a distro that's barely out of alpha status is a viable plan.

[Mike_Rochefort]

Hence the keyword "wait" in that statement.

Edit: Alternatively, you can also keep an eye on the Hyperscale project. It seems like they're going to be tracking the latest Stream kernels available, plus maintaining and enabling features Red Hat doesn't. So they'll be packaging the Stream 9 kernel for Stream 8, and when Stream 10 comes out they'll use that kernel for Stream 9 as well.

Cheers,
Mike