 Solution

For the damped harmonic oscillator, the characteristic roots are $-k\pm i\omega$. For $\omega \ne 0$, the real general solution isIf the frequency parameter is zero, the characteristic root is repeated and the complete limiting basis is $e^{-kt},t{e}^{-kt}$, so $y_1=e^{-kt}(A+Bt)$. No sign restriction on $k$ is needed for these formulas, although $k>0$ corresponds to decay.