Comment 40 for bug 132271

The problem with continuing to patch for this issue, is that the patch is going to become rather more elaborate when speedstep_centrino is fully removed from the kernel. Up until now, it has simply been a matter of adding frequencing/voltage pair tables to the existing speedstep_centrino. However, upstream maintainers have decided that the correct way to go is ACPI, and thus speedstep_centrino, which is already deprecated, will be totally removed shortly.

Using a "custom patched kernel" is exactly what about 99.9% of Ubuntu users are already using - the vanilla kernel is heavily patched by Ubuntu devs, in order to get that "out of the box behaviour". Ubuntu and Fedora are widely regarded as being distros that heavily patch upstream kernel sources, in comparison to say, Debian.

What do you suggest Ubuntu does about some of the old drivers that are being removed from the kernel? Patch them back in also? There are only so many out-of-tree patches that you can reasonably expect a mainstream distro to maintain. Sooner or later you have to draw the line however. People with niche requirements will simply have to accept that they are heading for patchville, and had better learn how to compile a kernel. It's not that hard, really.

If a particular glitch is affecting a decent percentage of users, I'm sure it will be remedied. Heck, if it affects that many users, it will be flagged upstream as a bug. But this particular issue only seems to be affect a small proportion of users.

If you want to verify some of what I've said in this comment, head on over bugzilla.kernel.org and search for this issue. You'll find it's been blamed on buggy ACPI implementations, several times. Like it or not, that means it's not a bug with the kernel, and the kernel devs have already made up their mind.