User:Pietinger/Experimental/Kernel Upgrade from 6.11 to 6.12

Kernel Upgrade from 6.11 to 6.12

Normally I do not recommend switching to a new major version of the kernel immediately, but to wait for two, three or four minor versions first. So I only looked at the new options, but haven't checked them yet (yes, I'll try out the Real Time Kernel later). I also recommend that you only switch when the sys-kernel/linux-headers are also available in the kernel version (these usually take a little longer).

Note: Kernel version 6.12 has just been labeled as the new LTS kernel and will certainly soon become the next stable kernel for Gentoo.

Notes for 6.12

A good overview of everything new in 6.12 can be found here:

Some options that used to be in the CONFIG_EXPERT menu have moved to the main menu of “General Setup”; see the diff: [[1]]

Upgrade

I took over all default values with <return> when I did the make oldconfig. Here is a possible list (I have left out - as always - all new modules for some new hardware; if you have one of them, enable it):

1.
Preemption Model
  1. No Forced Preemption (Server) (PREEMPT_NONE)
> 2. Voluntary Kernel Preemption (Desktop) (PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY)
  3. Preemptible Kernel (Low-Latency Desktop) (PREEMPT)
  4. Fully Preemptible Kernel (Real-Time) (PREEMPT_RT) (NEW)
choice[1-4?]: 2
2.
    Legacy cgroup v1 cpusets controller (CPUSETS_V1) [N/y/?] (NEW)
3.
  Mitigate Gather Data Sampling (MITIGATION_GDS) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) hardware bug (MITIGATION_MDS) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate TSX Asynchronous Abort (TAA) hardware bug (MITIGATION_TAA) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate MMIO Stale Data hardware bug (MITIGATION_MMIO_STALE_DATA) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) hardware bug (MITIGATION_L1TF) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate RETBleed hardware bug (MITIGATION_RETBLEED) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate SPECTRE V1 hardware bug (MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V1) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate SPECTRE V2 hardware bug (MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate Special Register Buffer Data Sampling (SRBDS) hardware bug (MITIGATION_SRBDS) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
  Mitigate Speculative Store Bypass (SSB) hardware bug (MITIGATION_SSB) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
4.
  Module compression (MODULE_COMPRESS) [N/y/?] (NEW)
5.
  Native PCIe Enclosure Management (PCI_NPEM) [N/y/?] (NEW)
6.
  Compressed RAM block device support (ZRAM) [N/y/?] (NEW)
7.
Synopsys DesignWare I2C adapter (I2C_DESIGNWARE_CORE) [N/y/?] (NEW)
8.
  Display a user-friendly message when a kernel panic occurs (DRM_PANIC) [N/y/?] (NEW)
9.
  Enable support for userspace-controlled virtual timers (SND_UTIMER) [N/y/?] (NEW)
10.
  AMD Queue-based DMA (AMD_QDMA) [N/y/?] (NEW)
11.
  Serial bus multi instantiate pseudo device driver (SERIAL_MULTI_INSTANTIATE) [N/y/?] (NEW)
12.
  Extra btree_path tracepoints (BCACHEFS_PATH_TRACEPOINTS) [N/y/?] (NEW)
13.
Integrity Policy Enforcement (IPE) (SECURITY_IPE) [N/y/?] (NEW)

Remarks

1. We only get this question because we have already activated CONFIG_EXPERT. With kernel version 6.12, the long-developed real time option was added. If you are really brave you can of course also try the Real-Time kernel ... at your own risk :-D

2. I have taken the default here. However, I have not yet checked whether we/I might still need it.

3. I have taken the default here.

4. This question only appears if you still have module support.

5. I have taken the default here.

6. I dont need it.

7. Enable it if you have a DesignWare PCI Controller

8. My kernel never panics ... so: No :-D

9. I dont need it.

10. An Intel machine doesn't need that. Unfortunately, I am not an AMD expert ... maybe you should activate it to be on the safe side if you have AMD.

11. Only necessary for very special sound chip sets. See also in: User:Pietinger/Experimental/Manual_Configuring_Current_Kernel#Serial_Bus_Multi_Instantiate

12. I only got this question because I have already activated Bcache. I have taken the default here.

13. I only got this question because I have already activated SECURITYFS (coming from AppArmor). I dont need it.