Got bored recently and started messing around with Linux kernels. Ubuntu 20.04 still ships 5.4 by default, and even if you install the OEM kernel you’re only at 5.6 — meanwhile mainline is already at 5.9, which is pretty underwhelming if you like being on the newest thing. And some of the new features baked into recent kernels genuinely do improve performance. Canonical’s Daniel Van Vugt was recently digging into why gnome-shell performs so badly at 4K, and it turned out to be a kernel scheduling problem with Intel integrated graphics creating the bottleneck. That issue seems to be largely alleviated on 5.8.

The default Ubuntu 20.04 kernel is 5.4. It’s a bit old, sure, but that’s what the distro decided on back then. Canonical keeps pushing patches into that 5.4 line too. That said, the Ubuntu 20.04 repos do actually have a 5.6 kernel in them, named linux-oem-20.04. You can just install it. sudo apt install linux-oem-20.04 So what’s this kernel for? Canonical’s official explanation is that it’s “a kernel with some drivers and tweaks for certain OEM vendors’ devices” — if you’re installing on a laptop or desktop that’s been “Ubuntu certified,” there’s a decent chance your drivers are sitting in this kernel. Mine’s a ThinkPad, so I’m definitely fine.

Same old problem: every kernel update, VMware’s module build shits the bed. This time it’s Linux 5.3. The fix is to patch the kernel’s VMMON code so it plays nice with the new kernel.

As usual, every time the Linux kernel gets an update, VMware Workstation’s vmmon and vmnet modules fail to compile. No exception this time either. The fix is blunt: just use a patch.

Yep, another kernel update just landed in the Ubuntu repos.

Grab it from the Ubuntu kernel Mainline PPA http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.17.1/ Download the deb files and install them. “unsigned” means no Secure Boot support.

A few days ago both Phoronix and OMGUbuntu ran articles saying Fedora has done a ton of optimization for power saving, plus some bullshit claiming you have to use Fedora to get the battery life improvements. Fedora’s Power Tweaks Dropped The Power Use On A ThinkPad By ~30% https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-Battery-Numbers-2018 For Better Battery Life on Linux Try Fedora http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/02/better-battery-life-on-fedora-linux Which is total bullshit, honestly. Because Ubuntu can do it too.

Kernel Linux 4.13 is out now, and you can install it through the PPA: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-kernel-team/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install linux-generic-hwe-16.04-edge

BBR is a new TCP congestion control algorithm researched and developed at Google. More details here.

Linux kernel 4.10 is out, and supposedly it brings a lot of improvements, so let’s take it for a spin: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-kernel-team/ppa sudo apt update sudo apt install linux-headers-4.10.0-8-generic linux-image-4.10.0-8-generic linux-image-extra-4.10.0-8-generic linux-headers-4.10.0-8 A reboot should do it. Then you’ll find VMware no longer works — the modules fail to compile again.