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I have a computer with hardware not supported by the kernel in Ubuntu 18.04. Ubuntu 20.04, however, recently got a kernel that does support it. I took the following kernel packages from 20.04, installed them on 18.04, and everything appears to be working just fine.

  • linux-image-5.11.0-27-generic
  • linux-modules-5.11.0-27-generic
  • linux-modules-extra-5.11.0-27-generic

The hardware that was previously undetected is now detected and functioning properly

I have a feeling that this should not have been so easy though. What could go wrong with a "kernel transplant" such as this? What should I be on the lookout for to indicate something is wrong?

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    How did you install the new kernel?
    – Nmath
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 22:18
  • If you manually installed it; you've also taken the task of manually installing updates yourself into the future; but you weren't specific as to how you installed it (ie. what @Nmath asked). Also as that kernel isn't QA-tested with 18.04 in mind, you've taken on that responsibility yourself too.
    – guiverc
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 1:24
  • I used apt-get download to download the .deb files from a 20.04 instance and then copied them over to 18.04 and installed them with apt install ./*.deb. I am aware of the responsibility as this is for a custom Linux distro that is manually managed anyway.
    – JM0
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 20:57

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The Ubuntu HWE kernel packages are for exactly this purpose. It is also possible to get prepackaged kernels that are even newer than these.

The HWE kernels do not have any significant negative impacts. The biggest penalty for a non-distribution kernel is that it may not have gotten as much testing, and updates to it will occur outside of the distribution's update cycle, so you won't get updates unless you do it yourself. This could have security implications.

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  • Unfortunately the HWE kernel available in 18.04 does not support the hardware I have. The 20.04 HWE kernel just recently did get support which led to this experiment.
    – JM0
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 20:58
  • If I'm not mistaken the "20.04 HWE" kernel is actually available in the Ubuntu 18.04 repos, and is the newest "supported" kernel in ubuntu. (At least, until there is a newer one.)
    – user10489
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 22:43

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