Look at the kernel packages for Ubuntu here. I am going to list the steps I intend to take for upgrading my kernel on a 64-bit Linux Mint system. I assume that if one has a 32-bit system, one would replace the identifier "amd64" with "i386", below.
Based upon the comment by Tom C. here, it seems prudent to remove VirtualBox, which I don't believe I use anyway.
sudo apt-get purge virtualbox virtualbox-guest-utilsI did so and rebooted and all was well.
Next begins the task of upgrading the kernel. I have read that proprietary drivers may encounter problems following a kernel upgrade, but I don't believe I am using any on the particular machine I have in mind for this experiment.
Note: the specific commands to upgrade to the next kernel version, 3.8.3, may be found at the end of this post.
cd /tmpReboot. Assuming the system now boots. . . open a terminal and enter
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-headers-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-headers-3.8.2-030802_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_all.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-image-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-image-extra-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.2-030802_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-extra-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
uname -rto verify the kernel has been upgraded. I will now follow the above steps and see what happens. I feel ambivalent about the risk. If my OS is borked, then I will simply install the latest version of OpenSuse, 12.3, which was released today, by the way.
Post Scriptum.
After rebooting, all was well. I opened a terminal and typed uname -r and found that the kernel was now 3.8.2. I am using Firefox and Ktorrent without any issues so far. . . however, I do notice that the font on my blog looks correct for the first time in a long time. I don't know why a kernel upgrade would change that, but I'm not complaining.
Post Post Scriptum.
I had good fortune with the kernel upgrade on Linux Mint Nadia KDE. It may be my imagination but I believe Ktorrent is downloading and uploading faster after the kernel upgrade, but I change so many settings on the fly in Ktorrent that I don't know whether to trust my hunch.
I had bad luck upgrading the kernel on Linux Mint Nadia XFCE, in which my system was rendered completely silent. I believe the problem concerned not XFCE but rather the optical S/PDIF audio output of my htpc system. Linux support for optical S/PDIF has always presented difficulty, because I always have had to edit configuration files to get the sound working right. After the kernel upgrade, I did not know how to get the sound configured and did not feel like researching it all over again, so I opened up Synaptic and completely removed all the files associated with the new kernel. Then I rebooted and found myself back at kernel 3.5, with sound working again.
One has to weigh the advantages of a new kernel--minor, insignificant--with the disadvantages--no sound?!
03/18/2013 Update: Upgrading to Linux kernel version 3.8.3
To upgrade to Linux Mint to kernel version 3.8.3. . .As you can see, just a few minor changes to the filenames are required to install a different kernel version. I added this section because I used it and may use it again in the future.
cd /tmp
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-headers-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-headers-3.8.3-030803_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_all.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-image-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-image-extra-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.3-030803_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-extra-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
7 comments:
Did you configure the s/pdif? (on a terminal type alsamixer, using arrows go to spdif and type m then esc to leave it).
Hotalot
Thanks for that tip. I had forgotten what to do. Alsamixer sounds familiar. That was probably what I did last year to configure the s/pdif. However, I've already regressed to kernel 3.5 and don't feel brave anymore... losing sound on an htpc was a shocker... I think I'm going to wait for Linux Mint to work its magic with version 15 and see what they come up with. I'll probably have to do the alsamixer thing even then, though, and I'm glad the info is here on my blog. I spend so much time searching for little bits of information like that.
Worked perfectly for me. I did have to boot to rescue mode and re-install the NVIDIA 310.32 driver. And also had to remove VirtualBox. Thanks for the info.
Yes, virtualbox it seems may present a problem, but I never use it anyway, so I uninstalled it.
Of course, kernel 3.8.3 was released a few days ago, so I adapted the above instructions to install it as well so that I don't miss out on any Linuxy goodness. The commands are the same, but the filenames and urls are different for the newer kernel, obviously. After several mistakes copying and pasting, all went well in the end, and my laptop has 3.8.3 installed.
I will say that Open Suse 12.3 seems to have an easier upgrade path for new kernels. A few clicks and my admin password were all that were required. Ubuntu makes things a little bit more difficult, possibly because they are trying to protect the low-knowledge users from situations like the one that afflicted my htpc.
Alsamixer is a dead end.
Kernel 3.8 breaks S/PDIF. I have proven this by experiment. 3.8 is silent, whereas 3.5 and 3.7.10 are not. See my post above. I am keeping my htpc's kernel at 3.7.10 for the time being. I really wish the kernel developers had come up a less destructive solution to their conundrum, but I imagine there aren't many users that use S/PDIF, compared to the numbers that use HDMI.
The above mods, etc are not needed here.
May be hardware incompatiblities. Running here: Lenovo AIO, I7, 8GB DDR3, 80GB SSD, 750 GB hybrid-SSD-HDD, etc.
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.9-raring/
is my next buntu kernel upgrade, in a few hours time.
To check for the latest:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
Copy the 2x 'headers', 'image', 'extra' - for your build of buntu to the a tmp directory.
Then (if there are no other *.deb files in the tmp directory):
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
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