Transitional kernel packages

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 2016-08-16 at 09:48 +0200, Nils Kassube wrote:
> Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> > 
> > while I understand what a transitional package usually is good for, I
> > don't understand what those linux-*-lts-releasename packages are good
> > for:
> > 
> > http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=xenial&section=all&arch=any&ke
> > ywords=linux-generic-lts&searchon=names
> > http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=xenial&section=all&arch=any&k
> > eywords=linux-lowlatency-lts&searchon=names
> > 
> > Could somebody please explain the reason for this ongoing
> > "transition"?
> 
> If you use a LTS release like 14.04 there will be hardware enablement 
> packages available which are backports from later releases like 14.10, 
> 15.04, etc. which let you use hardware which was not usable with the 
> original packages for 14.04. But the rest of the system would stay the 
> current release (14.04). The kernel meta packages would be named 
> according to the release from which they were backported like "linux-
> generic-lts-wily". If I would use this backported kernel, I would of 
> course uninstall the "linux-generic" package to avoid downloading the 
> extra packages which would never be used again. After the upgrade to a 
> new LTS release I would need a package which now replaces these 
> backported packages to the kernel package of the new release, which 
> would be "linux-generic".

Thank you Nils,

I didn't notice that "linux-generic" not necessarily is a dependency.
It's just a dependency depending on the used release and chosen
transitional package. Ok, now I notice that if the used release e.g. is
trusty, but the transitional package lts-xenial, then "linux-generic" is
not a dependency, since "linux-generic" indeed is another version, than
the version provided by the transitional package. When I missed this,
the transitional packages seemed to be good for nothing :D, but without
the "linux-generic" dependency it makes sense for backports purpose :).

Regards,
Ralf