this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
0 points (NaN% liked)

Linux

48328 readers
614 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
nooter692@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
0
Should I switch from the older OEM kernel to the newer generic kernel? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago by xavier666@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
1 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I am using a Dell Latitude 3420 (Ubuntu 22.04.3) and it uses a slightly older OEM kernel 5.14.0-1048-oem. The generic kernels keep getting upgraded but are never used. The current generic that I have is 6.2.0-26-generic and 5.15.0-79-generic.

So I have 2 questions

  1. Should I leave the kernel as it is? Some threads online say it's better to leave it as it is as an OEM kernel is better for Ubuntu-certified laptops
  2. If I should change the kernel, what would be the best way? I don't want to hard-code the kernel version.
    • If I have issues in the latest generic kernel, I should be able to roll-back to the OEM kernel.

Related links

  1. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1395080/which-kernel-should-i-use-for-my-hardware-oem-or-generic
  2. https://www.reddit.com/r/XPS/comments/rif7wo/ubuntu_after_installation_oem_kernel_instead_of/
  3. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1387979/removing-a-oem-installed-kernel
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] trompete@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Is the OEM kernel getting security updates? Then it should be fine.

If you want a specific feature that's available in the newer kernel, then just try it out. You can select the kernel during boot. If it all works, uninstall the OEM kernel and it should default to the generic one.

Edit: If you want to find out whether you're getting security updates, I'd check the changelog. It should be somewhere like /usr/share/doc/linux-image-somethingsomething/changelog.gz. The entries there should have a date. If the last security fix is older than a couple of weeks, that would be concerning.