Kernel Versions

Generally speaking, maintainers have the freedom to package any kernel version they desire for their devices. However, the choice affects the categories that the device may be eligible for and we strongly recommend following some additional guidelines for which kernel version to package for a device.

Categorization

Devices with a close-to-mainline kernel usually reside in testing and can be moved to community or main later if they meet the necessary requirements. Devices using a downstream (i.e. vendor-provided) kernel are packaged in the downstream or archived categories.

What To Package

We strongly advise against using any linux-next version as the kernel packaged for devices. linux-next is used for integration testing and as a base for patch submission, but is by no means stable and therefore we discourage packaging it. One exception to this is the device-postmarketos-trailblazer device package - it is intended to be a bleeding edge target reflecting the very latest state of upstream.

Further, we do not recommend packaging the first release candidate (-rc1) tagged after the merge window is closed. The first release candidate introduces a lot of new changes, after which only fixes are admitted into the kernel tree. Therefore, subsequent release candidates tend to be more stable than the first. We recommend waiting until at least -rc2 before packaging a new major kernel release.