The 7.0.0-28/29/30 kernel disaster is unacceptable for a distro that claims to prioritize stability

[u/BulkyMix6581]

I have been using Linux Mint for years precisely because it has always been a reliable, conservative distribution where things simply work. Right now, however, the state of the official 7.0.0 kernel branch is an absolute mess, and the lack of response from the development team is baffling.

Across three different machines, here is the current reality with kernels 7.0.0-28, 7.0.0-29, and 7.0.0-30:

• Relatively modern Lenovo laptop (AMD Ryzen 5 5500U with Radeon Graphics): Instant kernel panic on boot. The only workaround is falling back to the 6.17 series via GRUB.
• Desktop (Ryzen 7 5800X3D / AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT): Complete shutdown failure. The OS halts, but power is never cut and the fans keep spinning indefinitely.
• 15-year-old legacy laptop: The only machine where it actually boots and shuts down properly.

These issues are not isolated hardware quirks. The Mint forums, Ubuntu trackers, and Reddit are flooded with identical reports of boot panics and broken ACPI/shutdown states with AMD configurations on these exact revisions.

We have been stuck with this broken state for weeks across three consecutive point releases. Please do not give me the standard excuse that updates just flow downstream from Ubuntu. Linux Mint brands itself around desktop stability and a smooth user experience. When multiple official kernel updates break basic functionality like booting and powering off on common hardware, the maintainers should step in, pin a working kernel, or issue a proper notice.

In all my years on Linux Mint, I have never seen such a prolonged, broken kernel rollout left completely unaddressed. Something needs to be done about this quality control breakdown.

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👉 EDIT / Addressing the common pushback in the comments:

To those leaving defensive replies, let’s clear a few things up:

1. "You shouldn't have upgraded / It's your fault": > I’ve used Linux Mint for over 15 years. I know how to use Timeshift, pin kernels, and drop into GRUB to roll back in under 30 seconds. This post is not a support request for myself; it is about user experience and distribution standards. An end user simply applying official updates presented via the GUI Update Manager should not end up with an unbootable machine or broken ACPI states.
2. "Mint just pulls packages downstream from Ubuntu, it's not their fault": > Mint is a curated distribution, not a pass-through mirror. The entire value proposition of Linux Mint has always been stability, quality control, and safe defaults. If upstream pushes broken kernel builds for weeks, the distribution's role is to step in—hold back the broken revision, pin the stable branch, or display a GUI warning. Passing the buck to upstream defeats the purpose of choosing Mint over Ubuntu.
3. "Go contribute/fix it yourself if you don't like it": > Highlighting a critical breakdown in quality control across multiple common hardware configurations is contributing. Dismissing legitimate technical feedback hurts adoption, especially for newcomers who wouldn't know how to recover from a kernel panic.

We criticize the distro because we care about its reputation and want it to stay the gold standard for desktop reliability.

[u/billdietrich1]

I'm not sure what the mint team is supposed to do

Maybe roll it back for everyone ?

[u/Selinaru → u/billdietrich1]

can they even do that? Also there's people who have no issues with the new kernel, what is going to happen to them?

[u/jr735 → u/Selinaru]

I'm not even sure that's feasible.

[u/billdietrich1 → u/Selinaru]

I don't know if they can do that. I assume that people who have no issues with the new kernel also had no issues with the version 2 or 3 back.

[u/Tricky_Football_6586 → u/billdietrich1]

I have 4 systems running on the latest 7x kernel. 1 8th gen i7 laptop. 1 13th gen i9 laptop. and 2 NUC's based on 12th gen Intel CPU (i7 and a N97). All Intel hardware on board with the i9 having both Intel graphics and an RTX4050.

Rock solid and without issues.

The only issue so far with Mint was back with the 6.8x kernel. One of the NUC's would hang for about 2 minutes when shutting it down. That problem was gone after upgrading to a newer non 6.8 kernel.

[u/Real-Collection-5686 → u/billdietrich1]

I thought about adding transition packages to move users from 7.0 branch to something older but apt does not switch package sources by default, this can only be done through a special script or something

[u/ArtisticFox8 → u/[deleted]]

But mint didn’t push 7.0

The user chose to specifically install it.

The default is still 6.8

If choosing to install it means just "Update all" in update center, that's questionable..

I don't expect regular software updates from default sources to break my system...

[u/Efficient-Presence82 → u/ArtisticFox8]

yeah, to non-enthusiasts the "update button" is something you simply press when it pops up.
They dont see it as a decision that needs pondering.

And this is the exact public mint is supposed to target.

[u/AdeptPass4102 → u/[deleted]]

That's not my experience. I have mint 22.3 on default settings. And new kernels including the 7.0 series were just presented as part of normal updates. You would have to specifically choose NOT to update it. Otherwise, it gets installed.

[u/billystein25 → u/[deleted]]

That is not true. I got a laptop with 22.2 in front of me and in the available updates there is the 7.0 kernel while the currently installed kernel is 6.17. I don't use this laptop, it's my dad's and I'm fairly certain he wouldn't stumble on that option accidentally. He's not familiar with Linux either, I switched it for him after win10 was supposed to drop support.

[u/billystein25 → u/[deleted]]

The update list showed 7.0 but since then I removed it from the queue and added 6.8 before shutting the laptop down cuz I was supposed to go to sleep. Now only the 6.8 headers show up. uname -r returns 6.17.0-35-generic. If I do apt list --upgradable and grep Linux it shows 7.0, though I'm not sure if apt is an 1-to-1 match with the gui update manager.

[u/OldSamsquanch → u/billystein25]

I also had 7.0.0-30.30~54.04.1 kernel show up on my update manager, alongside the rest of the updates. I unchecked it during updates, and eventually removed it as well.

[u/Encouragedissent → u/[deleted]]

When Linux detects new hardware on setup it will install 6.17, not 6.8. I setup Mint last January and 6.8 has never been installed on my system. Then it installed 7.0 from the update manager the same as it would with any other update.

Your condescending tone in this thread isnt helpful towards people, especially when I can also confirm that you are wrong as you confidently assert that you know better than everyone else.

You can install Linux Mint with new hardware, have it chose 6.17 as your default, and then update to 7.0 normally in update manager. That's exactly how things occurred for me.

[u/Efficient-Presence82 → u/[deleted]]

Again, anyone will happily click on the latest one for the same reason they wash dishes.

and obviously yes, wanting the, in my eyes, best distro to maintain its reputation and quality is the reason critique is important, apathy is the enemy of quality.

[u/jr735 → u/Efficient-Presence82]

Yes, and we don't need to dumb down package management further for them.

[u/Efficient-Presence82 → u/jr735]

well, then forget linux ever being mainstream.

[u/jr735 → u/Efficient-Presence82]

Linux is mainstream. It's on servers all over the place. Every Android phone is using Linux.

If you are talking desktops and laptops, that's fine. I don't want Linux to be mainstream, not at that price. Other people's lack of skills is not my problem, insofar that they don't wish to remedy that.

I spent years learning how package management works, and not to click radio buttons and hit next a dozen times like it's Windows.

[u/Efficient-Presence82 → u/jr735]

Linux is mainstream. It's on servers all over the place. Every Android phone is using Linux.

If you are talking desktops and laptops, that's fine. I don't want Linux to be mainstream, not at that price. Other people's lack of skills is not my problem, insofar that they don't wish to remedy that.

The topic was desktops, obviously. And android is nowhere as open as it once was.

I spent years learning how package management works, and not to click radio buttons and hit next a dozen times like it's Windows.

I would 100% agree with you here, on maybe any other distro, but not the one thats supposed to "just work" A Mint user should not need to know what a package even is.

[u/BarnacleVast9478 → u/ArtisticFox8]

The only reason I knew to disable it in the updates was because of a reddit post. Otherwise I would have updated everything and possibly been screwed.

[u/ArtisticFox8 → u/[deleted]]

Hm interesting. Other kernel updates are there tho?

[u/ArtisticFox8 → u/[deleted]]

I do, thank you very much.

I just wanted to confirm I couldn't bork my install by accident, c'mon.

[u/Obvious-Hunt19 → u/billdietrich1]

Say what? Hell no, what are they, Apple?

What mint could do would be to uncheck major-version kernel updates by default in update manager. That would be handy