Just bought a Slate AX. Seems very nice. I am a bit puzzled. I can not seem to find an official firmware with an supported kernel version.
If I update to the latest stable (4.5.0) or even snapshot (4.6.0) firmware, the kernel remains 4.4.60.
That version is not supported since 2 years as far as I can see. Is this kernel in the firmware being customly patched? Or is it just not updated with security fixes anymore?
Or is there another way you have to upgrade the kernel than via firmware.
Searching the forum I can only find a community repo with a firmware containing 5.x kernel?
Hope you can point me out that I do not have the correct view on things
I would say the kernel itself won’t receive fixes. That’s due to the usage of older OpenWrt versions (as you can see here)
Maybe some critical fixes are backported, but I don’t think so. This depends on the OpenWrt team.
Kernel security isn’t a big topic for embedded devices anyway because they typically run a fixed set of software, and the attack surface is perceived to be smaller due to limited functionality and exposure. Of course, more up-to-date software is better, but it’s not like comparing Windows XP to Windows 11.
GL iNet devices run on OpenWrt base and the team does not develop kernel modules themselves. At least not that I am aware of.
So in summary: If you want to have up-to-date software, GL iNet devices aren’t the way to go … yet.
