Will Linux Kernel 3.5 be coming to 12.04?

Question

I'm wondering if Kernel 3.5 or 3.6 will be available for Ubuntu 12.04 when the Kernel is officially released?

Answer 1

The Ubuntu Kernel team will be providing packages of all the kernels from the next 3 Ubuntu releases for 12.04. You can get the details on that here:

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Release/Rolling

These kernels will be named like this:

linux-image-current- - always points to the the most recently released kernel, e.g., 12.10, 13.04, etc.

They will be available in the package manager but by default your 12.04 installation will use 3.2.x unless you specifically install one of these kernels.

As far as 3.5 itself, you can now use the hardware enablement stack:

sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-quantal xserver-xorg-lts-quantal 

For all future kernel releases, you can always find the latest builds of the upstream kernel here:

• http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
• How can I install a newer kernel?

However these packages are for testing and you probably shouldn't use them unless you need to or you know what you are doing.

Answer 2

I can confirm that the 3.5 kernel for Precise, installed from Synaptic package manager, and NOT from the mainline kernel site, is perfectly stable.

As uname -a shows:

Linux mike-host-name 3.5.0-18-generic #29~precise1-Ubuntu SMP Mon Oct 22 16:32:29 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Note: Successfully updated today to: 3.5.0-19-generic #30~precise1-Ubuntu with the settings below (30 Nov 2012).

Even though there is no need to update unless you have a particular reason, this is the process:

Using, Synaptic, you can mark for install

• linux-image-generic-lts-quantal

and if you want the headers

• linux-headers-generic-lts-quantal

Then apply the changes in Synaptic and restart.

After restarting, go back to Synaptic and remove all but 1 or 2 of the 3.2 kernels. It is best to leave 1 or 2 installed so that you can boot from them if needbe.

You can also uninstall the auto-updating metapackages for the 3.2 kernel because these will only update you to releases of the 3.2.x kernel series. They will always point to the latest kernel available, as it explains, but only for the 3.2.x series. However, you can leave these packages if you want, as now the kernel updates will come from the upgraded (3.5) packages.

Now you should be able to keep receiving updates of the 3.5.x kernel series, although you can reverse the process and go back to 3.2 if required.

More information on the 3.5 kernel for Precise is listed here.

I should stress that there is no need to update unless you have a particular reason, but it is relatively simple.

Answer 3

By default, the 12.04.2 point release will ship with the newer 3.5 kernel from Quantal so anyone installing from a 12.04.2 CD will have that kernel by default.

Users who initially installed 12.04 or 12.04.1 can upgrade as per the instructions above.

More information here

Answer 4

Open the terminal and run the following commands to install Kernel 3.5.0 at your own risk for 32-bit/i386 systems:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/kernel-i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

or

sudo apt-get install linux

For 64-bit/amd64 systems, you can install with these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/kernel-amd64
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

or

sudo apt-get install linux

Restart now your system to finish the installation. Then, check your current kernel version with this command:

uname -r

To remove Linux Kernel 3.5 and restore the previous kernel, run this command:

sudo apt-get purge linux-image-3.5.0-030500-generic

Answer 5

It is possible to upgrade just about any distribution's kernel, including Ubuntu's, by compiling it yourself. (See sites like this one or this one for details on how to do this, or perform a Web search.) I've done this for years, and most of my computers run self-compiled kernels. This isn't a good option for most non-technical end users, since it's a fairly technical process. You can minimize your exposure to the technical details by using a default configuration file -- but one of the reasons to compile your own kernel is to tweak those options to optimize performance, so using the default options robs you of one of the advantages of this procedure.

I have heard of sites that provide precompiled versions of upgraded kernels for distributions like Ubuntu, but I don't happen to have any URLs handy.