https://packages.ubuntu.com/artful/all/linux-firmware/downlo...
When going latest kernel it makes sense to have the latest firmware otherwise certain kernel features wont work.
Those Linus tirades about We Dont Break Userland are why. The only way application interact with the kernel is via SystemCalls, which once they go public are -never- retracted, and never significantly change.
This is why the kernel has system calls like 'mlock' and 'mlock2', because the first call ended up being incorrect but YOU CANT TURN BACK NOW! Or a better example `stat`, `stat64`, and `statx`
Aside the obvious manual download and installation, if you use ZFS and Ubuntu LTS for example, it's messy, because the shipped ZFS version won't support the most recent kernel, so you'll have to separately download the ZFS packages from the most recent Ubuntu. This is just an edge case of course.
Also, distributions like Ubuntu LTS now provide stable kernel upgrades, so that you're not significantly far from the latest versions (16.04.3 will ship shortly, and will likely have 4.10 or more recent).
Ultimately, it really depends on your machine. If you have recent hardware (eg. Skylake), then definitely new versions will bring compatibility (along with updated `linux-firmware` package).
I've been using mainline versions for the last years, due to recent hardware, and didn't have any problems (aside the ZFS issue, which made me move to BTRFS).
There is a small chance that something will break, which is usually either the wifi or graphics drivers on desktop systems.
Now let me ask you, is there any _reason_ for you to upgrade? Another poster mentions better laptop battery life but it could easily go the other way on some systems. Are you having trouble with any hardware? Unsupported webcam, etc? If not, then you're encouraged to upgrade the kernel as a learning experience but if your priority is stability and you don't have an evening to risk investing, then you should probably wait for Ubuntu to provide the update.
linux-headers-4.12.0-041200_4.12.0-041200.201707022031_all.deb
linux-headers-4.12.0-041200-generic_4.12.0-041200.201707022031_amd64.deb
linux-image-4.12.0-041200-generic_4.12.0-041200.201707022031_amd64.deb
then just $ sudo dpkg -i *.deb in the folder containing the files, and then a reboot, and $ uname -a to verify you're on the correct kernel
For reasons unknown Fedora's RawhideKernelNodebug repo includes that package but Ubuntu's doesn't :)
Not the one downvoting you but: are you sure?
https://lwn.net/Articles/601799/
tl;dr:
> CFQ separates each process's I/O requests into a separate queue, then rotates through the queues trying to divide the available bandwidth as fairly as it can.
> The BFQ I/O scheduler also maintains per-process queues of I/O requests, but it does away with the round-robin approach used by CFQ. Instead, it assigns an "I/O budget" to each process.
http://marc.info/?t=149861183900003&r=1&w=2 http://marc.info/?t=149864742900002&r=1&w=2
Oh and the one that got fixed:
v4.7..v4.8:
14552
1331854 5068427 42175318
11363 files changed, 627754 insertions(+), 279373 deletions(-)
6657 files changed, 329595 insertions(+), 167605 deletions(-)
v4.8..v4.9:
17392
1419476 5372905 44206994
11179 files changed, 632159 insertions(+), 354871 deletions(-)
5993 files changed, 214842 insertions(+), 120945 deletions(-)
v4.9..v4.10:
14249
1463146 5668517 49833479
11726 files changed, 744012 insertions(+), 249810 deletions(-)
5884 files changed, 329130 insertions(+), 115189 deletions(-)
v4.10..v4.11:
13891
1227388 4763853 39671475
12506 files changed, 530154 insertions(+), 232410 deletions(-)
6230 files changed, 209555 insertions(+), 95502 deletions(-)
v4.11..v4.12:
15736
2025692 7383431 88754335
12396 files changed, 1300537 insertions(+), 267064 deletions(-)
5829 files changed, 215764 insertions(+), 124745 deletions(-)
parallel -k 'r=v4.$(({}-1))..v4.{} ; echo $r: ; (git rev-list $r | wc -l; git -c diff.renameLimit=10240 diff $r | wc; git -c diff.renameLimit=10240 diff --shortstat $r ; git -c diff.renameLimit=10240 diff --shortstat $r -- ":!drivers/") | sed -r "s/^ *//; s/^/ /"' ::: {8..12}Apparently 4.12 fixes a VRAM detection issue. I guess regarding the shenanigans by NVIDIA where they put 3.5 GB on this gfx card, and then 0.5 GB more in a slower variant (that I supposed is presented differently to the kernel). They went into a lot of trouble and bad PR for that so I think it's safe to say they won't do it again anytime soon.
Here's the bug thread: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89664