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Is there a separate repo for long time support kernels such as 5.10? In the kernel.org repo I see only tags like vX.Y and vX.Y-rcN Where can we find tags like 5.10.45?

A related question - how to submit fixes for v5.10 ? Are back-ports of newer mainstream drivers and fixes accepted?

I apologize if this is a stupid question. Could not find directions by moderate googling.

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Yes, there is a separate repository for stable kernels; this is where you’ll find all the branches that start when a given mainline kernel is released, and tags such as v5.10.45.

The process for submitting a patch to the stable kernels is described in the kernel documentation (but that doesn’t make your question stupid). The short version is that patches can be backported from the mainline kernel to stable branches, by submitting them to [email protected], with an explanation of why they are relevant for a stable kernel.

Patches submitted to stable kernels will usually be applied to all current stable branches for which they are relevant. Fixes are usually accepted (see the rules in the documentation), but newer mainstream drivers aren’t. (However, a number of distributions allow new mainstream drivers in their own long-term kernels.)

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    Regarding the backport of patches to LTS : These are decided (more and more automatically) by the LTS maintainer generally being either Greg Kroah-Hartman or Sasha Levin or both. Some patch can indeed be just ignored. For having personally succeeded in the past, I would suggest to get directly in touch with one of these two maintainers. (Doing this via some mailing list is more efficient & polite at first) and not necessarily the monstruous lkml since they also follow many distro-related kernel lists. Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 12:41
  • Do you mean you’ve had patches ignored when sent to stable@, but merged after contacting Greg KH or Sasha Levin directly? Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 13:08
  • Only writing about patches accepted in mainline and not backported on some LTS. The first occurrence was in 3.12 times (LTS maintained by Jiri Slaby) On the gentoo-kernel mailing list where I had been invited to get directly in touch with Jiri by Greg-KH himself. (That was successful, less than a week later, the patch was backported) This way (of directly contacting the LTS maintainer) is becoming more & more necessary since the selection of patches to backport is now left to some (indeed clever-but-not-that-much) automate. Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 13:51
  • I hope your experience will be better 'cause when I tried it I was met with indifference and my submission was ignored. Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 13:54
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    @ddbug patches aren’t applied to a version, they’re applied to a branch. Whatever is in the branch when it is tagged with a given version is what ends up in that version. In other words, a patch for the 5.10 series is added to the 5.10.y branch, and it will be included in whatever the next release is on that branch. Patches can’t be added to already-released versions. Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 15:12

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