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Kernel Release Streams

Comprehensive specifications and workload mappings for all 4 kernel release streams in cordanaLLM/nucleus.

1. Stream Architecture

                                upstream: kernel.org
                                         │
        ┌───────────────────┬────────────┴───────┬───────────────────┐
        ▼                   ▼                    ▼                   ▼
    bleeding            mainstream              lts               realtime
  (Linux 7.3-rc2)      (Linux 7.2.4)       (Linux 6.18.50)      (Linux 7.2-rt)
        │                   │                    │                   │
        ▼                   ▼                    ▼                   ▼
  Blackwell B200       Intel Xe2 Arc        Enterprise K8s      Game Servers
  RTX 5090 / CXL 3.0   AMD ROCm 10          OpenZFS 2.3 kmod    Low-latency UDP
  sched-ext eBPF       NVIDIA 565/610       CloudNativePG       WireGuard Gateway

2. Stream Specifications

2.1 Bleeding Stream (bleeding)

  • Upstream Release: Linux 7.3-rc2 (Mainline)
  • Target Hardware: NVIDIA Blackwell RTX 5090 and B200 accelerators, PCIe 6.0 / CXL 3.0 interconnects.
  • Key Features: sched-ext user-space eBPF scheduler support, cutting-edge DRMs, prototype memory tiering.
  • Flavors: ai-infer-nvidia-bleeding, k8s-node-nvidia-bleeding, docker-nvidia-bleeding.

2.2 Mainstream Stream (mainstream)

  • Upstream Release: Linux 7.2.4 (Stable)
  • Target Hardware: Intel Arc Battlemage Xe2, AMD Radeon RX 7000/8000 (ROCm 10), NVIDIA Ada/Ampere (565/610).
  • Key Features: BBRv3 congestion control, VirtIO mq-deadline, Intel Level Zero compute.
  • Flavors: base-*, docker-*, podman-*, ai-infer-*.

2.3 Long-Term Support Stream (lts)

  • Upstream Release: Linux 6.18.50 (Longterm)
  • Target Workloads: Enterprise Kubernetes nodes, OpenZFS 2.3.x root filesystems, PostgreSQL / CNPG databases.
  • Key Features: Rock-solid stability, proven OpenZFS kernel module API stability, strict memory overcommit controls.
  • Flavors: k8s-node-*, cloudnative-storage, cloudnative-pg.

2.4 Realtime Stream (realtime)

  • Upstream Release: Linux 7.2-rt (PREEMPT_RT)
  • Target Workloads: Low-jitter gaming servers (Counter-Strike 2, dedicated game hosts), software-defined radio, audio processing.
  • Key Features: Deterministic interrupt handling, high-resolution timers, threaded IRQs.
  • Flavors: appliance-game-server, appliance-gateway-dns.