In Debian terminology, when you run
apt-get source linux-image-3.19.0-trunk-amd64
(or the equivalent apt-get source linux
), you're actually downloading and extracting the source package. This contains the upstream code (the kernel source code downloaded from kernel.org) and all the Debian packaging, including patches added to the kernel by the Debian kernel team.
When you run
apt-get install linux-source-3.19
you're actualling installing a binary package which happens to contain the source code of the Linux kernel with the Debian patches applied and none of the Debian packaging infrastructure.
The source package's name is just linux
; apt-get source
will convert any binary package name it is given into the corresponding source package name.
By the way, since experimental
packages aren't upgraded automatically, you should make sure you've updated your copy of linux-source-3.19
and re-extracted it before comparing; the .dts
file you're seeing in your diff
was introduced in the latest update. The packages currently in the archive all contain this file.
The remaining differences are pretty much normal: as has been indicated in the comments, debian
contains all the packaging and is only in the source package, .pc
is used by quilt
to keep track of the original files modified by patches, and is also only in the source package, and the .1
files are generated manpages, probably a side-effect of the kernel build, and therefore only appear in the binary package (but they shouldn't really be there).
The reference package is the source package, as obtained by apt-get source
. This builds all the kernel binary packages, including linux-source-3.19
which you install with apt-get install
. The latter is provided as a convenience for other packages which may need the kernel source; it's guaranteed to be in the same place all the time, unlike the source package which is just downloaded in the current directory at the time apt-get source
is run.
As far as documentation goes, I'd follow the Debian documentation in the kernel handbook (section 4.5). Rebuilding the full Debian kernel as documented in section 4.2 which you linked to takes a very long time because it builds a number of variants.
The easiest way to install a newer kernel is to use Jessie backports.
First you need to add Jessie backports to your repositories, if it's not already there:
echo deb http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jessie-backports.list
(as root), then
apt-get update
apt-get -t jessie-backports install linux-image-amd64
will install the current default backported kernel (4.8 as of this writing).
To provide the appropriate firmware for your laptop's wi-fi, you need to add non-free
and install firmware-iwlwifi
:
echo deb http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main contrib non-free > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jessie-backports.list
apt-get update
apt-get -t jessie-backports install firmware-iwlwifi
To solve the display problems, you can remove xserver-xorg-video-intel
(nowadays Intel GPUs don't need a separate driver, they can use the kernel's mode-setting support), as suggested by GAD3R:
apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel
(You may need to install xserver-xorg-video-dummy
to satisfy other packages' dependencies.)
You should also install the Skylake firmware to enable all the GPU features:
apt-get -t jessie-backports install firmware-misc-nonfree
Enabling backports is safe: newer packages are not picked up automatically from backports, you need to explicitly select them using -t jessie-backports
as above (but once you've done that, updates to the upgraded packages are picked up by apt-get upgrade
).
Version 4.6 of the kernel already provided good support for Skylake, and it's improved since. If you upgrade as above, running apt-get upgrade
will automatically upgrade to later versions of the kernel once they become available in the backports.
Best Answer
Add something like
to your
sources.list
. To install the 4.6 kernel, run:It might depend on a few other things that can also be found in backports, you might have to add those packages names to the command line explicitly. Apt will automatically track the versions in backports for the packages you install from backports, and not install anything from there unless you explicitly ask for them.
And after reading the entire question: It should be possible to leave the old kernel installed, and then grub should be configured to offer you a choice.