Hi! This is a bit of a newbie question, so please bear with me.
I purchased a laptop that has a specific hardware issue under Linux (the keyboard does not function). A patch fixing the issue was approved for 6.8 and incorporated in the “stable tree” of older kernels: 5.4, 5.10, 5.15, 6.6, 6.7, etc.
My question is: Do distros ship with an updated kernel that incorporates all the patches? Or does the user need to update after installation for the patches to be applied? I imagine that it may perhaps vary from distro to distro, but I honestly don’t know.
The question is relevant for me because, potentially, I would have to install the actual distro and update, rather than just try out a live version.
In Arch there are AUR packages for specific versions so you don’t have to do it yourself. Arch is about picking and choosing your packages, but not really about actually building/patching things on your own like LFS or Gentoo.
Although picking a rolling-release distro and then using an outdated kernel does seem counter-intuitive.
This is one of those comments that causes Arch to get the reputation that it does. You aren’t wrong and you probably don’t intend to be off-putting but here we are.
I don’t understand. What is the problem with what I said? I am genuinely confused by your response.
How is it off-putting that you can install a package with the exact version you want instead of doing it yourself. What you said puts more people off of Arch, not me. What you said makes Arch sound more complicated than it is.