How to Update Kernel

[gordon.cooke]

EDIT: read replies below. There may be better ways to do this. Im leaving the HOW TO of what I did below becuse I know it worked on my system (even if not the most elegant). Seems you could also use update manager but you have to show level 5 updates to find the kernel one. Today (11 FEB) I found this post of instuctions also. http://www.unixmen.com/linux-tutorials/ ... -linuxmint Choose your method.

Canonical announced yesterday that there were several vulnerabilities identified in the Ubuntu kernel.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/10-Kerne ... 4162.shtml
The Softpedia article has a link to the Ubuntu announcement
EDIT: I just noticed Husse posted a sticky on this http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=41348 Read it first. This worked fine for me, but there are risks.
EDIT: Also found this post on the vulnerability issue http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41265

I am assuming this is an upstream problem that carries through to Mint and best to make the upgrade (please let us know if Im wrong).
This is based on my having Mint 8 which is based on Ubuntu 9.10 (for previous editions see the link for the proper kernel version). READ the whole instructions and comments at the end first. This worked for me but back up your stuff, no warranty, etc.

1) Open Package Manager from the menu (it will ask for password)
2) Find the "linux-image-2.6.31-19-generic" which should have version "2.6.31-19.56"
to find it- on the left side pick the System Administration group,
then click on the 'package' column header to sort by the name
then type "linux image" in the quick search (yes, without the dash)
3) Mark for install
right click on the package and select Mark for Install
the icon next to i should turn into a green square with a curved arrow
4) Apply
Click the big green checkmark on the tool bar
5) Reboot

optional
6) check current version
open the terminal and enter

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$ uname -r

which returns "2.6.31-19-generic"

then you could also enter

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$ sudo dpkg -l linux-image-2.6.31-19-generic

which gives a whole table output and should show the 2.6.31-19.56 version number


Notes:
-- the press announcement only mentioned the linux-image package so thats all I have mentioned here. You probably also want to make sure you update other related meta-packages like linux-generic, linux-headers-generic, etc. i updated the kernel, then rebooted to be sure it worked, then updated others. (not sure this is best but what I did)
-- I installed the -19.56 version first and left the old kernel (-14.48) in place so I could boot it in case something went wrong. Im not uninstalling it until Im confident everything works with the new. (probably stick with current working kernel and one older).
-- during the install process, the installer automatically updates your grub2 menu- so when you reboot, if your grub menu isnt hidden, you should see Mint 8 listed twice, once with the new 2.6.31-19.56 kernel and once with the old kernel number.
-- if you have a separate grub partition, note that the updated grub.cfg is being written to /boot/grub/ in the filesystem, so you will need to manually change the grub.cfg in your grub partition. If you dont know what I mean, and you didnt set up a special partition for grub, you dont have one, dont worry about it. If you do have one, your new kernel wont do anything until you update the grub.cfg with it.

[rob2uk]

I'm confused about why you're giving such a complicated walkthrough when using MintUpdate or a simple

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apt update
apt upgrade

would do exactly the same job?

I may be missing something, in which case please excuse my ignorance

[gordon.cooke]

@rob2uk
Good question. Actually I tried the update manager first, which didnt show it at all, apt-upgrade did not update the linux-image package (and linux-headers-generic was held back). So manually installing the package was the only way I could do it. Yes, I could have given the command line apt to do it, but I figured describing the gui miht be more comfortable.

My GUESS is that because the kernel images are entered as separate packages, this isn't actually an 'upgrade' to the package manager. If you look in package manager you can see several versions of it (I see from -14 all the way up to -19, both -generic and -server) as different packages. Not sure why linux-generic or linux-headers-generic dont come up for update.

Im no expert on kernels or how they are packaged. Anyone have better info?

EDIT: After seeing Husse's post (see above edit in my OP) the updates are Level 5. I only checked down to level 4 for them.