Stable kernel version?

I have kernel 5.4.0-37 (that’s all my update finds).
Why doesn’t lubuntu use the latest stable kernel version (5.7.5)?
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is the 2020-April release of Ubuntu, and comes with long-term support kernel 5.4

The 5.7 kernel hadn’t been released in 2020-April, plus isn’t a long-term support kernel.

Ubuntu LTS (long-term-support) releases have two paths for kernels

  • the GA (general availability) kernel which remains supported for the entire release of the product (ie. 20.04 can use the 5.4 kernel all it’s life; after all it’s a long-term support kernel), or users can use
  • the HWE kernel kernel which follows the subsequent releases before finally settling on the next LTS GA kernel.

HWE will cause 20.04 users to get the 20.10 kernel (it’s not out yet, and users will get it on 20.04.2’s release; we’re well before the 20.04.1 release at this stage, let alone 20.10 which is the kernel it’ll get). Next upgrade will be to 21.04 kernel, then 21.10 before finally settling on the next LTS kernel (ie. 22.04).

It’s the way Ubuntu (and flavors) have done it for years, it’s less work given the long-term support kernels have security fixes (from stable kernels) back-ported to them, and don’t need constant upgrades like use of stable kernels would require.

I’ll provide some links for reading

https://ubuntu.com/kernel

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

https://ubuntu.com/kernel/lifecycle

https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

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