Re: [PATCH 6.6 0/3] arm64: Speed up boot with faster linear map creation

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 01:58:36PM +0000, Ryan Roberts wrote:
> On 17/02/2026 13:50, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 01:34:05PM +0000, Ryan Roberts wrote:
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> This series is a backport that applies to stable kernel 6.6 (base v6.6.126), for
> >> some speed ups to enable significantly faster booting on systems with a lot of
> >> memory. The patches were originally posted at:
> >>
> >>   https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20240412131908.433043-1-ryan.roberts@arm.com/
> >>
> >> ... and were originally merged upstream in v6.10-rc1.
> >>
> >> I'm requesting this be merged to stable on behalf of a partner who wants to get
> >> the benefit of this series in Debian 12.
> > 
> > Why can't they just use a newer kernel version (i.e. 6.12)?  Surely they
> > would be able to justify moving to a newer kernel for performance
> > reasons, why enable them to stay on an older one, just delaying the
> > inevitable upgrade they will have to do anyway in a year or so?
> 
> I can't answer this presicely, but I did ask and push for that approach. As I
> understand it, they are stuck with Debian 12, which is stuck with kernel 6.1.
> The Debian maintainer apparently requested that these go through stable in order
> to get them into Debian 12.

I understand the position of Debian not wanting to take patches for new
features that are not already upstream, but really, Debian offers a
newer kernel for hardware that wants to use it for things like this,
right?  Why not just use that instead?

thanks,

greg k-h