Comment 91 for bug 1779827

@joverstreet1, kernel 24 was installed first, by Ubuntu Software Updater. I then installed haveged to work around a kernel change to getrandom(). My SSD is not Western Digital but the SSD has nothing to do with the problem, at least not the one that is the focus of this bug report.

The kernel change was done to fix CVE-2018-1108 as explained earlier in this bug. Some packages used during boot tripped over this change. According to https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=897572 the offenders have been identified and fixed. However it seems Ubuntu has backed out the CVE fix instead.

The problem packages are plymouth & randutils (in utils_linux). The kernel change causes them to hang waiting for entropy. plymouth is involved in boot. It manages the handover from boot to the graphical login screen.

So yes the kernel, and other, developers are aware. I think Ubuntu release a new kernel with the CVE fix removed but I haven't used my Linux box for the last couple of days so don't know for sure.