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Kernel Upgrade Guide

A kernel is the core of any operating system. Before you start calling Linux an operating system, you need to know the basic concept and Linux’s birth history. Linux is not an operating system; mainly, Linux is a kernel.

How To Upgrade Linux Kernel On Various Distributions

Disclaimer

Upgrading the Linux kernel is not easy; you must do this only if you find security errors or hardware interaction issues. If your system crashes, you might have to recover the whole system. Mostly, Linux distributions come with the most upgraded kernel. Upgrading the Linux kernel doesn’t delete or remove the previous kernel; it is kept inside the system.

Note: You should not upgrade your kernel manually unless you want some specific driver support. You can roll back to the older kernel from the recovery menu of your Linux system. However, you may need to upgrade the kernel for hardware issues or security issues.

Preparation

Before you start upgrading your Linux kernel, you must know the Kernel’s current version running inside your host machine. You may do so by uname -r. In case of eBPF, the minimum required version is >= 5.8

Various Linux distributions have different methods to upgrade the Linux kernel. This guide convers ways to upgrade the kernel to a desired version for most Armbian Linux, Debian-based Linux, RedHat, Fedora based Linux, and Arch-based Linux distributions.

Note: Since dae is builts with eBPF, your host must meet the minimum Kernel version, >= 5.8 for dae to properly running.

Upgrade to BTF Kernel on Armbian Linux

For Armbian users, we have compiled kernels with BTF on.

See daeuniverse/armbian-btf-kernel.

Upgrade Kernel on Debian-based Linux

Debian-based distributions like armbian can install a specific version of Kernel on their system. You can run the following command-line on your Linux terminal to install any specific version kernel on your Linux system. After the installation is done, reboot your system to get the desired kernel on your Linux system.

# Sync databases.
sudo apt update
# Search available kernel versions.
apt-cache search ^linux-image
# Install specific image.
sudo apt install <specific-linux-image>

Reboot to take effect:

sudo reboot
uname -r

(Debian ONLY): If you would like to upgrade to the latest Kernel (AGGRESSIVE UPGRADE), follow the commands below:

Warning: The latest Kernel that Debian officially supports is available in the unstable release. Debian Unstable (also known by its codename "SID") is not strictly a release, but rather a rolling development version of the Debian distribution containing the latest packages that have been introduced into Debian. Upgrading to the latest Kernel might potentially introduce breaking changes to your system, so please do at your own risk.

Reference: https://www.itsfoss.net/installing-linux-5-14-kernel-on-debian-11/

Note: Please modify the following line if your system is NOT on Debian11: Pin: release a=bullseye - e.g. Pin: release a=buster (Debian10)

# Sync databases.
sudo apt update
# Add unstable source
cat <<EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list/
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
EOF

# Create apt preferences
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences
Package: *
Pin: release a=bullseye
Pin-Priority: 500

Package: linux-image-amd64
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 1000

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 100
EOF

# Perform full dist-upgrade
sudo apt dist-upgrade

Reboot to take effect:

sudo reboot
uname -r

Upgrade kernel on RedHat and Fedora Linux

Fedora, RedHat, and RedHat-based Linux distribution users can upgrade their Linux kernel manually by downloading the kernel from the repository.

Fedora and RedHat Linux users can install a specific version of Kernel on their system. You can run the following command-line on your Linux terminal to install any specific version kernel on your Linux system. After the installation is done, reboot your system to get the desired kernel on your Linux system.

sudo yum install kernel

Reboot to take effect:

sudo reboot
uname -r

Upgrade kernel on Arch-based Linux

Arch and Arch-based Linux distributions have a dynamic variety of Linux kernel. Arch Linux updates its security patch regularly; that’s why you will see notable kernel and patch updates are available on Arch Linux. Here, I will describe two methods to upgrade the kernel on Arch Linux.

Manjaro and other Arch Linux distributions often offer kernel updates and upgrades via the conventional update manager. When you run the system updater on the Linux system, it checks for the latest kernels. You can use the following pacman command to check for the latest kernel on Arch Linux distributions.

# Search available kernel images.
pacman -Ss ^linux$
# Install specific kernel image.
pacman -S <specific-linux-image>

Once you agree to install, reboot your system after the installation is finished. Then, you can check the kernel version to ensure whether the kernel is upgraded or not.

sudo reboot
uname -r