Hi guys so still new to Fedora 42 KDE Plasma I am currently using Kernel version via command, techfrost@fedora:~ $ rpm -q kernel-devel
kernel-devel-6.15.10-200.fc42.x86_64
It Looks as though the latest is stable: **6.16.3** version according to https://www.kernel.org/. My question is how and when do i know i need to update the Kernel? Sorry for the kind of noobish question but this is a question that may also help someone else out that is also new to the Linux sphere.
For future reference uname -a is a simpler way to get the kernel details.
Kernel 6.16.3 is currently in testing. If you need the kernel now, you can enable the updates-testing repository using the command in the link. Depending on how it performs in testing, it shouldn’t be much longer until it’s pushed into the regular updates repo. Also make note of the details regarding the newer kernel…
The 6.16.3 update contains a small set of fixes for ext4 users.
So if you’re not using ext4 for your filesystem(s), or you don’t have something 6.16.3 includes you desperately need, you’d be better off just waiting for it to be pushed to the regular update repos.
1 Like
Just to avoid confusion: this command does not enable updates-testing at all or so → it just gets this one package from testing and its dependencies. Future kernels will again taken only from stable. So if you get now with the command 6.16.3, then your system will have only this kernel from testing, nothing else, and it will not install a newer kernel from testing in future but wait for automatic updates until the next kernel (then likely 6.16.4) is in stable.
You do not need to care about this. Just do your daily updates of Fedora. They will contain a new kernel when there is one, but only once it has finished all testing/QA processes, to ensure that what you get is as stable and reliable as possible.
You can contribute to testing and take kernels earlier, as Brian mentioned above, though this goes along with risks you should mitigate before engaging in testing. However, sometimes it can also happen that users experience a bug and early updating can then make sense in some cases if the very new kernel has already finished the major testing/QA processes and contains less risks than the bug. But if you do not experience an issue that causes (risks for) a denial of service for you, just stick with doing the daily updates suggested by your Fedora 
2 Likes
I think the “fixes for ext4 users” in 6.16.3 are repairs to regressions introduced in 6.16.2 
So even ext4 users don’t need to be desperate to upgrade from the 6.15 series!
The problematic patch was introduced in 6.16.1, so even 6.16 is not affected. But as you indicated: the problematic patch was not backported to 6.15, so the issue that was fixed in 6.16.3 was newer introduced in 6.15.X
1 Like