How To: Upgrade your kernel, painlessly.

[allypink]

If all your system is working correctly why upgrade? You are only risking breaking something. Upgrade only if something you have added or have is not supported in the current kernel. As I understand it kernel upgrades are mostly for updated modules for new drivers.
But hey that's Linux users for you. We are not happy until we break something that is working.

[vrkalak]

But, hey, that's Linux users for you. We are not happy until we break something that is working.

So true

[vrkalak]

As a 'personal project' . . . I just Compiled my own Kernel from Source via CLI

Not as difficult as I thought it would be. Just took some time and patience.
Watched the 'entire' kernel load, then configure, as it moved through the terminal, line by line.
Only took me about an hour and 20 minutes.

I downloaded the newly 'stable' 2.6.37 Linux kernel, from here > http://kernel.org
and installed to my #!Crunchbang Statler x64 (Debian-Squeeze-based) with Openbox.

And "went at it" . . . then, a re-boot. is it gonna b0rk? Nope, everything seems perfect.

According to the release notes the 2.6.37 Kernel was released as 'stable' yesterday ... with the "200 line patch" included.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I did find some guidance here > http://forum.kernelnewbies.org/ and in the Debian User Forum > http://forums.debian.net/

[DasFox]

In Linux Mint 10 I tried like 3 different kernels and all of them caused the Mint splash screen to be off centered and also text would appear just before Gnome loaded and also after restarting, before the splash would appear....

I don't get why updating kernels should cause the splash screen to not load properly...

Also as a Linux geek of 10 years, mainly in Slack, I've never updated headers, only the kernel, headers should not need to be updated unless you are compiling something against them that needs the latest headers...

[Orographic]

I installed a newer kernel when I was looking at Mint 9 last year, as my system is quite new and it worked very well under the newer kernel.

My question: Now that i am playing around with LMDE, can I use this same process explained here to upgrade the kernel on LMDE?

Will it effect updates in any way?

[Dave68]

Yes you can use the same process listed here.

I ran a Liquorix Kernel for a little while on LMDE, but decided to stay with the default.

Hope This Helps,
Dave

[Orographic]

Yes you can use the same process listed here.

I ran a Liquorix Kernel for a little while on LMDE, but decided to stay with the default.

Hope This Helps,
Dave

Thanks for that. I have a Core i3 and it isn't fully supported until 2.6.33, I understand. So, it might be a better bet to use a newer kernel. I thought the latest LMDE wold have come with 2.6.33 or later but not to be.

What made you change back to the default kernel?

[vrkalak]

What made you change back to the default kernel?

Didn't change back.

Ubuntu and Debian do not use the same versions of the Linux kernel.

Ubuntu uses the current released as 'stable' generic Linux Kernel ... 2.6.37 Same as, Ubuntu -- released as 'stable' but with 'bugs'

Debian uses the 'tried and true' well-tested stable Linux kernel ... 2.6.32-5 for it's stable release of Debian 6.0 Squeeze
Debian is well-known for being rock-solid stable -- always. They go with a rock-solid stable kernel, as well.

[Orographic]

What made you change back to the default kernel?

Didn't change back.

Ubuntu and Debian do not use the same versions of the Linux kernel.

Ubuntu uses the current released as 'stable' generic Linux Kernel ... 2.6.37 Same as, Ubuntu -- released as 'stable' but with 'bugs'

Debian uses the 'tried and true' well-tested stable Linux kernel ... 2.6.32-5 for it's stable release of Debian 6.0 Squeeze
Debian is well-known for being rock-solid stable -- always. They go with a rock-solid stable kernel, as well.

Sorry, I can't quite follow what you said. I'm aware that Ubuntu uses a newer kernel than Debian. I'm also aware that Debian is rock solid
which is great but the kernel that comes as default with Debian doesn't fully support my processor, the core i3.

My question was, what made you move back to the default kernel in LMDE after using the Liquirox one?

[Orographic]

Just as a heads up, I was copying my USB drive documents (about 170mb) across to LMDE with the latest Liquirox Kernel installed and it froze about half way through the copy and then crashed the USB drive and then also LMDE.

I then restored an image of LMDE with the default kernel and copied the same USB drive documents across and all went perfectly and very fast too.

I do remember there was a similar issue in Ubuntu 10.10 in the first few weeks re copying files from an external drive but it was quickly patched. 2.6.35 kernel is the one for Ubuntu 10.10, I think.

I wonder if the Liquirox kernel has fixed that problem or just left it? It was a pretty serious crash that I experienced.

[Old Ruler]

I prefer kernels with better timer resolution for music applications. There's a good low latency kernel available for ubuntu 'natty' which seems to work very well for me on my Mint 10 KDE install. I followed the instructions here: http://longspine.com/how-to/real-time-k ... k-meerkat/

uname -a then shows:
Linux asus 2.6.38-5-lowlatency #32~ppa1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT Wed Feb 23 11:08:30 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I have a couple of kernel modules. One was installed for the fairly recent proprietary nVidia graphics card driver and the other for VirtualBox. So I installed the kernel headers too (mentioned in the article as "Optional").

Without fixing the new kernel for the nVidia driver the computer will not fully boot to the desktop. The Grub boot manager offers an option to boot the new kernel in 'recovery mode' so I chose that and then chose the 'netroot' option.

It may be worth trying the 'failsafeX' recovery mode, but it hasn't worked for me. I have a proper root user account, so I typed my root password, but your normal user password should work just as well (if the root account isn't set up). Leave the 'sudo' off of the following commands if you are root:

Code: Select all

cd /etc/X11
sudo cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.OLD
sudo cp xorg.conf.failsafe xorg.conf
sudo reboot

No need to use recovery mode this time. The desktop should come up, although it will probably be smaller than usual (everything on your desktop may look bigger). Now go to System - Additional Drivers and select the (version current) 'Recommended' driver and Activate it. Reboot in the usual way when it has finished and your new Low-latency kernel should now work with the graphics driver you were previously using.

Now to fix VirtualBox. When I tried to run a virtual machine, it came up with a dialog saying "The VirtualBox Linux driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing (as root):

/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup"
so that's what I did:

Code: Select all

[root@asus john]# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
 * Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules                                              *  done.
 * Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules                                
Error! There are no instances of module: vboxhost
4.0.2 located in the DKMS tree.                                                   *  done.
 * Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMS                    
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 2.6.38-5-lowlatency (x86_64)
Consult the make.log in the build directory
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.0.2/build/ for more information.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/apport/package-hooks/dkms.py", line 57, in <module>
    report.write(open(apport.fileutils.make_report_path(report), 'w'))
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/crash/virtualbox-4.0.0.crash'

 * Failed, trying without DKMS
 * Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules                                          
 * Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong

[/size]
I didn't bother. Virtual Box versions are released quite often, so I simply un-installed the old and installed a new (4.04) version and then upgraded the Guest Additions on my VMs. Everything is now working just great and even seems a little faster than before.

[eric1987]

I get an init module 3.13 isnt installed. I have tried to install it but it doesn't work it always says im on 3.12!!!

[smsmith]

I get an init module 3.13 isnt installed. I have tried to install it but it doesn't work it always says im on 3.12!!!

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mo ... 3-1ubuntu1

[mint123]

Are there certain kernel versions that aren't yet stable or simply won't work well with certain Mint versions? I'd like to upgrade Julia from 2.6.35-22 to 2.6.39.3. Would this be a problem? The hardware is a 2 year old Core 2 Duo & ATI Radeon HD laptop. Do these steps also apply to Mint Debain?

[MaddawgTL]

Can this tutorial also be used in changing from the latest kernel to an earlier version? My netbook fan is running constantly even indoors in a cold room and from what I read on these forums about the power problem was wondering if changing to an earlier version of the kernel would that not help save my battery?

Any help would be appreciated,thank you.

[wayne128]

Can this tutorial also be used in changing from the latest kernel to an earlier version?

Yes

[MaddawgTL]

Thank you kind sir,still learning and thought so but want to make sure before I did something stupid.

[antikythera]

Thanks for the easy to follow guide, much appreciated. I just upgraded the kernel to 3.0.0-300 on Isadora 32-bit. Seems to be working without any problems

EDIT: I take that back. Kernel 3.0.0-300 is not suitable for my needs. It solved a couple of issues which I could live with but caused problems with sound playback via my system's onboard Realtek Audio CODEC. Not much good for casual gaming and streaming TV from iPlayer etc. like that.

I found a stable kernel for lucid which works great and performs better than the default Isadora kernel on my system. 2.6.34 so I am going to stick with that for now (until I feel the urge to try and break my installation again )

[antikythera]

Are there certain kernel versions that aren't yet stable or simply won't work well with certain Mint versions? I'd like to upgrade Julia from 2.6.35-22 to 2.6.39.3. Would this be a problem? The hardware is a 2 year old Core 2 Duo & ATI Radeon HD laptop. Do these steps also apply to Mint Debain?

best way to get a compatible kernel is to use the folder names in the repository like I found. lucid for Isadora, maverick for Julia etc. and stick to ones without 'RC' status.

[project1017]

Thanks for the Tutorial it worked like a charm