LTSI Linux kernel
I presume that next major Alpine release will be around May or June 2015 (by looking at previous release dates). AFAIK there is no new official LTS kernel candidate (some think it will be v3.18), so there is a chance that there won’t be any new before 3.2.0 release and Alpine will be still sticking to v3.14. In such case I think it would be good to consider using LTSI kernels as a base, as they have additional useful patches on top of standard LTS releases:
- Intel’s patches (more and better hw support)
- ktap
- LTTng
- Renesas’s patches (more and better hw support)
LTSI 3.14 Development
Schedule
LTSI Development
Guide
LTSI kernel patches
repository
(gitweb)
Quoting above guide:
h2. 3. LTSI Releases
h3. Major LTSI Release:
Formal LTSI Release should be released once every year. Prior to the formal release, there will be a 2-month Merge Window and roughly one month of Validation Period following after the Merge Window close.
During the Merge Period, all developers are able to submit the patches they wish to be merged into LTSI Kernel. Preferably, all patches should come from newer kernel (=already verified in the community and merged) or at least staged at Linux-next (=review completed). However LTSI Project will still be able to consider approving the industry demanded patches that are not available in the upstream tree if they are judged by the LTSI Maintainer, Greg Kroah-Hartman, as reasonable enough to be merged.
After the merge window closed, no new features will be accepted to be merged. Developers are also encouraged to participate to the Validation Period during the one-month Testing Period.
h3. LTSI Maintenance Update (sync with every LTS migrations):
LTSI will be updated every time Greg Kroah-Hartman releases LTS in Kernel.org. In case of 3.10 kernel, LTS release will be added sequence number of his update such as 3.10.25, 3.10.26, and 3.10.27. Greg will be re-basing LTSI kernel every time he releases LTS, thus there should be the LTSI Kernels that has the same version numbers as LTS such as LTSI-3.10.25, LTSI-3.10.26, LTSI-3.10.27.
If industry developer has other bug/security fix patches that are not available in the upstream, they can send such fixes to the LTSI tree via project mailing list.
Also, there will not be the tar-ball images provided by LTSI Project. Developers will have to pull the latest LTS kernel from the Kernel.org site and apply LTSI patches to create a complete LTSI kernel image by themselves.
h3. LTSI Maintenance Updated (Tar-ball):
Notwithstanding above, LTSI Project will provide a formal Updated tar-ball once every quarter. This release will require roughly 3 weeks of testing period prior to the release. Developers are encouraged to participate to this testing process.
(from redmine: issue id 3631, created on 2014-12-13)