Kernel 3.14 stable is relleased - where is VMware?

[mfelker]

Kernel 3.14 Final  was just released today.  It would seem likely that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS  will be  released with   this version.  Of course VirtualBox requires a very simple module recompile to work - and virt-manager will work.  So there is a potential problem for VMware  because of the LTS question.  I don't use Fedora except in a VM but I'm pretty sure that will  be the case for this distro  as its a rolling release. 

Naturally I expect no answer from VMware concerning kernel support.   Patches  may be OK for individuals or small companies but for larger companies - who knows?

[admin]

Perhaps you should be asking Linux developers the question, "Why isn't the 3.14 Linux kernel backwards compatible with existing 3.x drivers?"

Most software only breaks compatibility at major releases.  Only Linux seems capable of breaking compatibility with just about every minor release.

[mfelker]

Good question.  However I installed VirtualBox on  Ubuntu 14.04  using the version  4.36  provided by the Ubuntu repos.   I didn't even need to  recompile the modules as the kernel went from 13.12 to 3.12.  to 3.14 - Worked without a  hitch no incompatibiltitys   with updated drivers.   Same with libvirt.  I'm guessing (and of course this is only a guess) that incompatibilities  arise because the VMware source is closed.  Microsoft OS's  upgrades also break Windows drivers with programs other the WS.  When I use the versions of VB  provided by Oracle (now   4.3.10) I only need run /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup to recompile the modules for the new  kernel version.  What galls  me sometimes  is that the marketing side of th company wil r example, the WS 10 is compatible with all recent kernels (think they withdrew this claim however).  Naturally you guys are not responsible  Since VMware   (as well as Microsoft) have contributed some code to the kernel it is somewhat  confusing.   The patches developed  for kernel 3.13 work fine with the kernel optimized for Ubuntu so I'll stick with 3.13 since I won't  have to keep two items in GRUB.

I haven't had time to try Pavlinux's pataches for 3.14.  If somebody says they have gotten it to  work (beside the developer) I will make an effort to create them   from the diff files.  Does seem that code in the module sources  besides filter.c needs reworking for that .

[Poloisfej]

@jmattson, linux is wicked awesome for bringing in so much code that breaking compatibility with every major release is practically unavoidable. About doing that with every minor release, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Now that they're even starting to accept the VMware modules upstream, it won't really matter that much even though the development may seem too rapid for other folks.

[mfelker · Accepted solution]

WS 10.0.2 installs and works perfectly with Ubuntu 14.04  kernel 3.14.1-031401-generic

using

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VMware