KernelFAQ

?Discussion

Contents

Newer Kernel ?
Troubleshooting/Debugging
Information
1. Misc FAQ
2. New features
See also

Newer Kernel ?

Why would I install a new kernel?

It is often not necessary since the default kernel shipped with Debian handles most configurations. However, it is useful to compile a new kernel in order to:

Handle special hardware needs, or hardware conflicts with the pre-supplied kernels.
Optimize the kernel by removing useless drivers to speed up boot time (Do you really need it?)
Use options of the kernel which are not supported by the default kernel (see reasons).

You have two options to install a new kernel : you can install one of the precompiled kernels provided by Debian/GNU Linux or build the kernel yourself.

Installing linux image

This is explained in HowToUpgradeKernel.

Building my own kernel

This is explained in HowToRebuildAnOfficialDebianKernelPackage.

Troubleshooting/Debugging

Kernel Oops: The 'oops' refers to the message printed by the Linux kernel when an unforseen condition occurs. Such incidents should be reported to the Linux kernel developers. Information on how to do so comes with the Linux kernel sources. You may consider to install the Debian package 'kerneloops' to automate the reporting (see ?Kernel/Oops).

Information

Misc FAQ

What's my current kernel?: Use the command uname(1). For example : uname -r which prints 2.6.26-1-686 (so the package name is linux-image-$(uname -r)).
Which package does it comes from?: Usually, this command will work : dpkg -p linux-image-$(uname -r).

Where is the kernel configuration file?

The kernel configuration file of Debian Official kernel are available in /boot, named after the kernel release, like /boot/config-2.6.18-6-486, or /boot/config-$(uname -r).

All the kernel configuration files, which were used to build the official Debian's binary kernel images from the linux-2.6 source package are available from http://merkel.debian.org/~jurij/.

Kernel Source ? : See dpkg -l 'linux-source*' for available source packages, and KernelGit for development trees.

Kernel Headers ??