so the kernel team is going in the right direction in ubuntu

http://blog.redvoodoo.org/2008/09/linux-plumbers-conference-recap.html

* The kernel team will be packaging up the latest bleeding edge upstream "Vanilla" kernel. There are some details still to be worked out, like where it will live. Will go in main or universe, a PPA... The point with this is so that users will have a pristine upstream kernel to test against. This is where the kernel team is doing new development anyway. If the issue is fixed we can quickly do a git bisect and figure out what patch is needed and backport it to the stable kernel if it makes sense. I'll write more about this one in a future blog posting.