Stéphane Graber, the leader of the Linux Containers project, a member of the Ubuntu Technical Council, and a member of the teams responsible for releasing Ubuntu, has announced the creation of a new repository called Zabbly. This repository will provide fresh releases of the Linux kernel for Debian and Ubuntu LTS distributions. The Zabbly repository aims to offer more recent versions of the kernel compared to the packages available through the standard update system.
The packages will be available for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and Debian 12, supporting both X86_64 and AARCH64 architectures. Weekly package updates will be published as new kernel updates are released. As soon as a major new version of the Linux kernel is released, the repository will transition to supplying the newer branch once the core developers have created the first corrective update. For example, if the repository currently offers version 6.4.12 of the kernel, it will switch to supplying the 6.5 branch after the release of version 6.5.1. The packages are assembled and published automatically after manual approval and testing on multiple servers.
The Zabbly repository builds packages based on the corrective kernel issues provided by kernel.org. Additionally, patches with VFS IDMAP support for CephFS, PCIe problem fixes for Qualcomm servers with AARCH64 architecture, and removal of GPL conflicts with ZFS in AARCH64 are applied. The kernel configurations are optimized for usage in virtual machines and containers, specifically those surrounded by the Incus tools (a fork of LXD). The kernel settings are similar to those found in Ubuntu kernel packages.
The motivation behind creating this new repository is to provide users with the latest driver updates and broader hardware support. It is particularly beneficial when the standard kernel package lacks support for hardware that is already supported in the latest vanilla kernels. Using vanilla kernels can also help avoid regressions specific to Ubuntu kernel packages, which may arise due to the inclusion of a large number of additional patches.
To add the new repository to your system, you can follow the instructions provided on the Zabbly