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How To Upgrade Kernel
The easiest way to do this is to install one of the supplied kernel image packages on your system. They may be obtained using apt-get or aptitude if you want to use the command line, or Synaptic if you want to use a GUI.
To install a kernel image, you first have to decide which one you want to use. Start with
apt-cache search linux-image
Note that kernel images are available for several flavours - depending on your architecture.
A good overview on available kernel versions can also be seen at linux.
The latest Linux kernel can be installed using:
$ sudo apt-get install linux-image-flavour
Make sure you read everything it tells you during the installation, especially about initrd image. If you use an unusual boot loader, you might need to reconfigure after installing the kernel image - don't forget to tell it to use appropriate initrd image for the kernel in this case (PackageManagement page has details about listing contents of a package).
There are some alternative repositories for kernel images, but they aren't supported, and don't receive security updates (in a timely fashion) :
for DebianStable, use StableProposedUpdates or Backports;
for DebianUnstable and DebianExperimental, use something like:
# cat >> /etc/apt/preferences << EOF Package: * Pin: release o=Debian,a=experimental Pin-Priority: 102 EOF # apt-cache policy # shows/verifies the current preferences # echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian experimental main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list # apt-get update # apt-get -t experimental install linux-image-3.10-rc5-686-pae
(You might want to use unstable instead of experimental and/or choose a different mirror and flavour. Also the kernel version and ABI-version is probably different for you.) This might have some further dependencies, but generally they should not affect your stable (or testing) system. You still can select the old kernel in your bootloader afterwards.
See Also
DebianKernel - the Debian Kernel Team's page