Hi! This is a bit of a newbie question, so please bear with me.

I purchased a laptop that has a specific hardware issue under Linux (the keyboard does not function). A patch fixing the issue was approved for 6.8 and incorporated in the “stable tree” of older kernels: 5.4, 5.10, 5.15, 6.6, 6.7, etc.

My question is: Do distros ship with an updated kernel that incorporates all the patches? Or does the user need to update after installation for the patches to be applied? I imagine that it may perhaps vary from distro to distro, but I honestly don’t know.

The question is relevant for me because, potentially, I would have to install the actual distro and update, rather than just try out a live version.

    • The TongFang GMxXGxx needs IRQ overriding for the keyboard to work, is also sold as the Eluktronics RP-15 (TongFang GMxXGxx DMI board_name).

      commit df0cced74159c79e36ce7971f0bf250673296d93 upstream

      I am not using any distro right now because of the keyboard issue, and I do not feel comfortable patching it by myself.

      I am actually trying to figure out which distro to try out now that the patch has been incorporated.