Installing A Newer Kernel on LMDE 6

[Michael]

Installing a newer kernel on LMDE 6

Foreword:
Linux Mint Debian Edition aka LMDE, is not just a Cinnamon desktop slapped on top of Debian. The whole OS is considerably more integrated than this. Keep this in mind when modifying the Linux Mint team's creation.

WARNING: Don't use these instructions if you use Nvidia proprietary drivers. You need to switch to open source drivers to keep from breaking your system. You can switch back to proprietary drivers after the mod.

LMDE 6 uses kernel release 6.10. It will get security updates through Update Manager but no new releases. If you have very new hardware you may need to install a newer kernel release for all your hardware devices to work well.

For this you can use the Debian backports or Debian unstable repositories. At the time of this writing Debian backports has kernel version 6.5 and Debian unstable has version 6.6.13-1. Both of these repositories will get newer kernel releases over time.

Debian backports has software taken from the next Debian release, recompiled to work with the current Debian release. Debian unstable is where the development for Debian happens. Software from these repositories is not tested as extensively, may be incompatible with other software on your system and isn't directly managed by Debian's security team. You may not get security updates in a timely manner for kernels installed from these repositories.
Use these repositories at your own risk! Don't install a newer kernel release if you don't need to.

I'll gives instructions for both below. The instructions are for 64-bit installations. If you have a 32-bit installation replace all occurrences of -amd64 with -686 in the instructions. If you're unsure what your installation is run the command uname -r to see whether you have the -amd64 or -686 kernel.

You need to make a system snapshot with Timeshift before proceeding!

Using Debian backports
This should be the preferred method if you need a newer kernel release.

Debian backports is enabled by default on LMDE 6 but no software is installed from backports unless explicitly told to do so. To install the Debian backports kernel you can simply run this command:

 sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports linux-image-amd64 linux-headers-amd64

Once you've installed the kernel from backports you will also be getting kernel updates from there (or from other configured repository if it has a newer kernel version). You get the kernel updates as per usual through Update Manager.
Reboot your system to start using the new kernel. After reboot you can check which kernel version you're using with command uname -v.

 

[Michael]

Using Debian unstable (aka "sid")

Here things get very serious. Be really sure that you really need it before using Debian unstable!

You need to make a system snapshot with Timeshift before proceeding!

Debian unstable is not enabled by default on LMDE 6. So in addition to configuring the system to install and update kernels from Debian unstable we'll also need to add the Debian unstable repository.

Run this command to open the text editor and create a new APT sources file:

 EDITOR='xed -w' sudoedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/unstable.list

Put the following in the file, this adds the Debian unstable repository:

deb https://deb.debian.org/debian sid main contrib non-free

Save the file and close the text editor.
Run this command to open the text editor and create a new APT preferences file:

 EDITOR='xed -w' sudoedit /etc/apt/preferences.d/unstable.pref

Put the following in the file, this enables installing and updating the kernel from Debian unstable but makes it so no other software is installed or updated from Debian unstable:

Package: *
Pin: release n=sid
Pin-Priority: 1
Package: linux-image-amd64 linux-headers-amd64
Pin: release n=sid
Pin-Priority: 100

Save the file and close the text editor.
Run apt update to refresh the package index cache and now you can install the kernel from unstable with command:

 apt install -t unstable linux-image-amd64 linux-headers-amd64

Reboot your system to start using the new kernel.

After reboot you can check which kernel version you're using with command uname -v. If there is any problem with the new kernel you can boot the previous

 

[Michael]

Notes:

The reason for starting this in the first place was solely for the purpose of testing. I myself do not need a newer kernel for LMDE6, but I know that others will need at least testing to push the kernel to 6.5 or higher.

I was able to run this on my Xeon stable server. I figured if it didn't run here, it probably wouldn't run on consumer cpus.

Debian "Testing" or 6.5 works perfectly as tested. And I would leave it here if you do not require a newer kernel.

The unstable is buggy. This could be because of my Nvidia Qaudro video card drivers. I will test more once I get my Radeon card.

Also, I want to thank Xenopeek for helping me with the idea of punching LMDE 6 kernel upward for testing. I know that devs like Xeno cringe when I modify things like this. But I think that it is all part of testing and a good thing.


Kernel update LMDE 6:

https://packages.debian.org/sid/linux-image-amd64

 

[Michael]