# What's qrong with sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.12.12?

## C5ace

I am using sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.12.12 since some time on more than 20 systems. Now I get this message:

!! The following installed packages are masked:

- sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.12.12::gentoo (masked by: package.mask)

/usr/portage/profiles/package.mask:

# Alice Ferrazzi <alicef@gentoo.org> (30 Dec 2017)

# Masked for removal in 30 days.

# Upstream is no more backporting security fixes for 4.12.

# For a more stable kernel please downgrade to 4.9

# or move to 4.14(unstable) if it works for you.

Where can I find a list  of long term stable kernels for Gentoo?

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## asturm

```
$ eshowkw gentoo-sources
```

By upstream definition, 4.9 is LTS. 4.14 may become LTS, but so far it was a troubled release. 4.14.10-r1 has hopefully fixed the issues. Ultimately, you are responsible for your choice of kernel and have to decide if you need latest (4.14) for your hardware, or if 4.9 is sufficient. Please note that each kernel release is stable per definition of upstream; this is regardless of any stable kernel policy by Gentoo, which basically means bugs get preferential treatment.

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## depontius

 *asturm wrote:*   

> 4.14 may become LTS, but so far it was a troubled release.

 

I hadn't heard this.  Can you point me to some sort of discussion of the problems?  I seem to be happily running 4.14.4, though I know I need to get around to moving to something a bit newer.  Oddly, I saw 4.14.9 come and go, dropping back to 4.14.8-r1 as the as-yet unbuilt source tree.

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## asturm

Not that hard to find out:

```
$ emerge -vp =gentoo-sources-4.14.9

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!

[ebuild   R   #] sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.14.9:4.14.9::gentoo  USE="-build -experimental -symlink" 0 KiB

Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 KiB

The following mask changes are necessary to proceed:

 (see "package.unmask" in the portage(5) man page for more details)

# required by =gentoo-sources-4.14.9 (argument)

# /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask:

# Alice Ferrazzi <alicef@gentoo.org> (27 Dec 2017)

# Masked for removal in 30 days.

# There are issue on this kernel version due to a heavy changeset.

# (bug #642268)

=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.14.9
```

https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/9c22a5fa560d77fb7cd58e09d046924d

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## depontius

I remember seeing one comment from Linus, that he was dismayed to see the size of 4.14, because a LOT of people were piling their stuff into what had already been tagged as an LTS kernel.

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## asturm

Part of the trouble seem to be coming from the flags Gentoo hardened profile is enabling with GCC by default, so at least regular profile users should be fine.

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## jd42

Is there any information pertaining to the original question around the 4.12.12 kernel?

I can understand 4.14 staying in an experimental stage until such time as deemed stable.  My confusion is that several of the 4.12 kernels were stable at one time, and are now masked.  Hence the scenario where portage actually suggests a downgrade to 4.9.  I'd like to better understand what characteristics of 4.12 are now deemed unstable.

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## dmpogo

 *jd42 wrote:*   

> Is there any information pertaining to the original question around the 4.12.12 kernel?
> 
> I can understand 4.14 staying in an experimental stage until such time as deemed stable.  My confusion is that several of the 4.12 kernels were stable at one time, and are now masked.  Hence the scenario where portage actually suggests a downgrade to 4.9.  I'd like to better understand what characteristics of 4.12 are now deemed unstable.

 

My understanding of the reason is that 4.12 has stopped being updated by upstream, so will not be getting any security fixes anymore.   4.12 was always expected to be short lived, and now it died.  The mishap here, is that this was supposed to happen only after  4.14 became  already stable.  And 4.14 is stable and LTS for upstream, but Gentoo run into problem with it ( partially, seems due to default gcc flags ) and had to remove stable designation form 4.14-gentooLast edited by dmpogo on Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:27 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## jd42

 *dmpogo wrote:*   

> [
> 
> My understanding of the reason is that 4.12 has stopped being updated by upstream, so will not be getting any security fixes anymore.   
> 
> There is some mishap here, in a sense that this was supposed to happen only after  4.14 became  already stable.  And 4.14 is stable and LTS for upstream, but Gentoo run into problem with it ( partially, seems due to default gcc flags ) and had to remove stable designation form 4.14-gentoo

 

Ah, that makes sense.  The piece I was missing was the intent for 4.12 to be masked due to lack of updates after 4.14 became stable.

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## Cyker

Yeah, basically they're old so they're being pruned from the main tree; All the packages in Gentoo get this, it's just that the kernel is probably the most frequently updated package in the tree!

You can still use these older ones by unmasking them; Might be worth putting them in an overlay too if you want to keep them long-term as the ebuilds will be deleted eventually which can cause weirdness is something triggers it to be reinstalled.

Note that it being masked won't automatically remove them from your system, it just won't let you (re)install them, so you can carry on using it no problem.

If it makes you feel any better, I've just sync'd and all the kernels on my box have been masked due to the hysterical panic over this new CPU bug, so I'll be in the same boat running an 'old' kernel for a while I guess!

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## dmpogo

 *jd42 wrote:*   

>  *dmpogo wrote:*   [
> 
> My understanding of the reason is that 4.12 has stopped being updated by upstream, so will not be getting any security fixes anymore.   
> 
> There is some mishap here, in a sense that this was supposed to happen only after  4.14 became  already stable.  And 4.14 is stable and LTS for upstream, but Gentoo run into problem with it ( partially, seems due to default gcc flags ) and had to remove stable designation form 4.14-gentoo 
> ...

 

Yes,  non LTS branches are usually short-lived and are getting abandoned by upstream as soon as higher version LTS designed branch are deemed stable.

So I always use https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html as a guide what to put on the production system, and do not upgrade to intermediate branches even if they are called stable at some moment.

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## josephg

http://kernel.org/category/releases.html

i masked >4.10 when 4.12 corrupted my btrfs filesystem. i tend to stick with older lts, was on 4.4 and now 4.9, till probably the next lts after 4.14 is released. 4.14 will become lts only after next few versions go eol. as of now, 4.14 is too unstable.

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