All, Now that the linux-firmware split has landed in Noble, I'd like to tackle the next firmware issue: HWE backports. The problem at the moment is that backporting firmware to LTS releases for their respective HWE kernels often negatively impacts users running the GA kernel. Old kernel with new firmware is not a combination that firmware vendors typically test. Firmware updates between Ubuntu releases have grown significantly in recent years, resulting in larger backports and a higher chance of regressions. This approach to firmware backports has long been a thorn in the side of the SRU team, and rightly so. Just the recent backports to Noble for the 7.0 HWE kernel introduced at least two AMD regressions for 6.9 kernel users :-( To address this, I’d like to propose introducing linux-firmware-hwe (along with HWE variants for all subpackages). HWE kernels would depend on linux-firmware-hwe, which in turn would provide and break linux-firmware so only one set of packages can be installed at a time. This will prevent regressions for GA-only users. For systems that have both GA and HWE kernels installed, all kernels will load the HWE firmwares, meaning users might still encounter firmware-related issues when booting the GA kernel. The only complete workaround for that scenario would be installing both GA and HWE firmwares side-by-side in separate directories and pointing the respective kernels to load from their own paths. However, that introduces a whole new set of non-trivial challenges so I'm not considering this at this moment. I’d like to introduce this in Stonking first and then backport it to Resolute before the first HWE kernel lands there. I'd love to hear your feedback, suggestions, questions, comments, ... Thanks ..Juerg
-- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
