How to manually upgrade Ubuntu to the latest Linux kernel

The Linux kernel is the core of the operating system. It is responsible for managing resources such as hardware, memory, processes, and networks. New versions of the Linux kernel are frequently released, bringing new features, fixing bugs, and improving performance and compatibility. However, most Linux distributions do not provide the latest Linux kernel out of the box, unless you use Arch Linux or a rolling update distribution. This doesn’t mean you can’t use the latest Linux kernel on Ubuntu or other distributions. In this article, I will explain how to manually download and install the latest Linux kernel on Ubuntu.

Ready to update your kernel in Ubuntu 16.04 or its derivatives like Debian and Linux Mint? If you are ready, please continue reading!

Step 1: Check the installed kernel version

To discover the version currently installed on the system, we can:

$ uname -sr

The screenshot below shows the output of the above command in Ubuntu 16.04 server:

Checking Kernel Version in Ubuntu

Step 2: Upgrade the kernel in Ubuntu 16.04

To upgrade the kernel of Ubuntu 16.04, open http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/ and select the desired version from the list (the latest kernel at the time of publishing this article is 4.10.1).

Next, download the .deb file according to your system architecture:

For 64-bit systems:

$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.10.1/linux-headers-4.10.1-041001_4.10.1-041001.201702260735_all.deb
$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.10.1/linux-headers-4.10.1-041001-generic_4.10.1-041001.201702260735_amd64.deb
$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.10.1/linux-image-4.10.1-041001-generic_4.10.1-041001.201702260735_amd64.deb

This is a 32-bit system:

$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.10.1/linux-headers-4.10.1-041001_4.10.1-041001.201702260735_all.deb
$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.10.1/linux-headers-4.10.1-041001-generic_4.10.1-041001.201702260735_i386.deb
$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.10.1/linux-image-4.10.1-041001-generic_4.10.1-041001.201702260735_i386.deb

After downloading all these kernel files, install as follows:

$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb

After the installation is complete, reboot and verify that the new kernel has been used:

$ uname -sr

That's it. Your download will allow you to use a newer version of the kernel than the one installed by default in Ubuntu 16.04.

In this article, we learned how to manually download and install the latest Linux kernel on Ubuntu. We learned how to select the appropriate kernel version from Ubuntu's kernel repository, how to download the corresponding DEB files using the wget command, and how to install them using the dpkg command. We also cover how to reboot the system and check the kernel version, as well as how to delete old kernel files. By mastering these skills, you can upgrade the kernel of your Ubuntu system with more flexibility.

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