Planning the hardware enablement strategy for 14.04 LTS

Registered by Adam Conrad

In 12.04, we backported kernels, X, mesa, and DRM (and many random userspace packages that broke) for HWE between 12.04 and 14.04. Some of these things went well, others not so much. We need to deconstruct the pros and cons of what we did, figure out how we need to tweak it, and settle on exactly how we plan to provide this service for 14.04. We also need to discuss if this will cover Mir/Unity8 phone/tablet/desktop converged platforms, or only the classic X/Unity7 platform we plan to ship as the default desktop.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
Steve Langasek
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
Adam Conrad
Direction:
Approved
Assignee:
Adam Conrad
Definition:
Discussion
Series goal:
Accepted for trusty
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

Are we happy with how things worked in 12.04? Do we keep doing the same?

Kernel HWE stacks still need to happen, per OEM team

Concerns about the upgrade story, if you are running an enablement stack that's only supported for 9 months and what's the upgrade path

upgrades to non-LTS releases once you have the HWE stacks installed are not supported currently, because the libraries are broken.
 * suggestion: this should be quirked in update-manager

(?)

Work Items

Work items for ubuntu-12.04.4:
[adconrad] find owners for the left over bits of: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/1244438: TODO
[timg-tpi] ensure we have complete upgrade meta packages for all kernels: DONE
[adconrad] delegate someone in X to do meta packages for X stack if possible: DONE
[tjaalton] do meta packages for X stack if possible, to stay in sync with EOL upgrade kernel metapackages: TODO
[bdmurray] make update-manager DTRT on upgrade if you have an HWE stack installed: TODO
[adconrad] make the download pages clear that the .1 media remains available if you want the .0 stack: TODO
[adconrad] get www.u.c/download clarified with pointers to the .0 stack: TODO