Kernel – Will Ubuntu Point Releases Include a New Linux Kernel?

kernel

Now that Kernel 3.6 has been officially released, I'm wondering if the next Ubuntu point release will include the new Kernel?

Best Answer

12.04.2 includes Kernel 3.5 along with a newer Xorg, as part of the hardware enablement package, which is available here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

Do note that the Ubuntu image ISOs are also updated to use the new stack, so if you are doing new installations and want to keep the released 12.04 stack, you need to install from the older ISOs. These kernel upgrades are also not offered as part of normal upgrades, so there's no need to worry that you'll be upgraded from one major kernel version to the other. See the wiki page for more information.

The 3.2 kernel released with 12.04 will continue to be maintained for the life time (5 years) of precise. (and also Debian Wheezy)

Also, Ubuntu will generally work with mainline kernels. Binary builds are provided by the kernel team. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds

This is a new policy. The decision to have such a updated kernel and Xorg was decided at the 2012 Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) in Oakland.

The most exciting feature about 3.5 (IMHO), Seccomp2, is part of the Precise 3.2 kernel.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Will Natty Narwhall include Linux 2.6.38

Natty is now using to 2.6.38.

According to the kernel team's wiki:

As Natty is not an LTS we do not require a specific version for alignment upstream. Therefore we will be using the latest version released at kernel freeze.

Kernel – Install Newer Versions of the Linux Kernel

Warning.

This can break your system. The NVIDIA and ATI/AMD drivers and the broadcom wireless will most likely not work on this yet.

I would advise against it but if things get messed up you should be able to fix it by booting an old kernel and removing this one. Something like this ...

Boot from CD
mount -o bind /dev  /dev
mount -o bind /proc  /proc
chroot 
apt-get install 
update-grub

From comment by Tomas an easier method:

By entering GRUB through holding shift during boot you can enter the "Previous versions" of Linux. There you can select your old kernel, which is by default not removed.

Now if you still want it ...

Download the three .DEB files with the name starting with linux from here: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.4-precise/

Example for i386 (take the 2 with amd64 in the name for 64-bit and pae in the name for i386 with 4+Gb memory; check uname -a if you are unsure!):

linux-headers-3.4.0-030400_3.4.0-030400.201205210521_all.deb
linux-image-3.4.0-030400-generic_3.4.0-030400.201205210521_i386.deb
linux-headers-3.4.0-030400-generic_3.4.0-030400.201205210521_i386.deb

Install all 3 packages ...

Example for i386

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.4.0-030400_3.4.0-030400.201205210521_all.deb    
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.4.0-030400-generic_3.4.0-030400.201205210521_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.4.0-030400-generic_3.4.0-030400.201205210521_i386.deb

Reboot your system ...

sudo reboot

Test it ...

uname -r

This should show a kernel with 3.4 in the name.

Now for the good news ...

"This release includes several Btrfs updates: metadata blocks bigger than 4KB,
much better metadata performance,
better error handling and
better recovery tools.
a new X32 ABI which allows to run in 64 bit mode with 32 bit pointers;
several updates to the GPU drivers: early modesetting of Nvidia Geforce 600 'Kepler', support of AMD RadeonHD 7xxx and AMD Trinity APU series, and support of Intel Medfield graphics;
support of x86 cpu driver autoprobing, a device-mapper target that stores cryptographic hashes of blocks to check for intrusions, another target to use external read-only devices as origin source of a thin provisioned LVM volume,
several perf improvements such as GTK2 report GUI and
a new 'Yama' security module."
You can help test official 3.4 support in 12.04 by following these instructions: http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2012/06/call-for-testing-1210-kernel-on-1204.html

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Will Natty Narwhall include Linux 2.6.38

Kernel – Install Newer Versions of the Linux Kernel

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