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I am trying to figure out the HW certification policy for older HW (my interest is servers). When a new point-release or HWE is available, it usually includes a Linux kernel update. Is there a certification procedure for new kernels with existing/old HW?

I'll give an example for clarification: this is the certification page for HP DL380 Gen9. As you can see, it is certified for 12.04.5, 14.04.1 and 16.04. Does that mean that 12.04.4 (which includes a different Linux kernel) is not certified? 14.04.2 is based on kernel 3.16 (certified) while 14.04.1 is kernel 3.13. Does that mean that if I want a certified system I cannot upgrade to latest 14.04 point-releases?

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There is one interesting fact about a new point release. We can divide it into 2 parts:

  • Software stack.
  • Hardware Enablement (HWE) Stack, the kernel part.

Let's take 14.04.1 Ubuntu Trusty (with 3.13 series kernel) for example. When running upgrade with sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade:

  1. Your software stack will be upgraded to the latest version, which is 14.04.4 now.
  2. Your kernel stack will stay on 3.13 series, instead of upgrading to the 4.2 kernel that shipped with 14.04.4.

In this case, you will only be ask to upgrade the HWE stack when the 3.13 kernel has reached its end of life in Apr. 2019. (Or you can do this manually, run sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-wily, change wily to any other distro name, but you won't need this if the 3.13 kernel works fine with your hardware)

So to your question, you should be able to use the command described at the very beginning to upgrade the system from the certified 14.04.1 to the latest point release without causing any problem, as the kernel is the same 3.13 series.

You can check this fact after an upgrade, with uname -a to check your kernel and lsb_release -a to check the software stack.

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  • Thank you. I guess that still means that if I DO upgrade my kernel during a point-release upgrade, I might lose my server's certification. Using the above example, let's say I'm upgrading my HP DL380 Gen9 from 14.04.1 to 14.04.04 (inc. new 4.2 kernel), I might run into compatibility issues with the new software.
    – Amit
    May 1, 2016 at 14:59
  • I've added the command in the answer, if you're running upgrade with sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade from 14.04.1 to 14.04.4, it will still using the 3.13 kernel, so the certification still valid for it. If this information helps, please accept this answer, thanks!
    – P.-H. Lin
    May 1, 2016 at 17:25
  • Thank you, but my question was more theoretical than practical - whether or not a hardware certification applies when the kernel is being upgraded.
    – Amit
    May 2, 2016 at 6:48
  • Quote: "The short answer is 'probably', if the system has been certified with Ubuntu at some point then unless a new bug is introduced into the kernel affecting that systems hardware, then it should continue to work. " answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-certification/+faq/1559
    – P.-H. Lin
    May 3, 2016 at 2:03

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