Hi! This is a bit of a newbie question, so please bear with me.

I purchased a laptop that has a specific hardware issue under Linux (the keyboard does not function). A patch fixing the issue was approved for 6.8 and incorporated in the “stable tree” of older kernels: 5.4, 5.10, 5.15, 6.6, 6.7, etc.

My question is: Do distros ship with an updated kernel that incorporates all the patches? Or does the user need to update after installation for the patches to be applied? I imagine that it may perhaps vary from distro to distro, but I honestly don’t know.

The question is relevant for me because, potentially, I would have to install the actual distro and update, rather than just try out a live version.

  • taladar@sh.itjust.works
    5·
    9 months ago

    The distros usually take care of that, often they add or backport additional patches too but the patches in the stable upstream kernel your distro kernel is based on are incorporated as well (unless there is specific reason to revert them because the patch is known to cause more issues than it fixes). Obviously only as long as the distro is fully supported, after that it might depend on the exact LTS policy or if it is completely out of support you should get a new version of the distro.

  • GnomeComedy@beehaw.org
    0·
    9 months ago

    The distro you’re using and the model of laptop and a link to the bug/commit would make it easier to answer what you can expect.

    • TingoTenga@kbin.socialOP
      1·
      9 months ago

      The TongFang GMxXGxx needs IRQ overriding for the keyboard to work, is also sold as the Eluktronics RP-15 (TongFang GMxXGxx DMI board_name).

      commit df0cced74159c79e36ce7971f0bf250673296d93 upstream

      I am not using any distro right now because of the keyboard issue, and I do not feel comfortable patching it by myself.

      I am actually trying to figure out which distro to try out now that the patch has been incorporated.