How to install Linux Kernel 5.8 in Ubuntu Linux? Here is how to update Kernel in Ubuntu 20.04.
Kernel 5.8 is released with many new features and changes, such as – adreno 405 / 640 / 650 gpus open source driver support, improved radeon driver support, spectre mitigation fixes, support for power10 processor, introduces amd energy driver, exfat driver improvements, improved dax support and thunderbolt support.
Announcing the release of Kernel 5.8, Linus Torvalds writes:
“So I considered making an rc8 all the way to the last minute, but decided it’s not just worth waiting another week when there aren’t any big looming worries around. Because despite the merge window having been very large, there really hasn’t been anything scary going on in the release candidates. Yeah, we had some annoying noise with header file dependencies this week, but that’s not a new annoyance, and it’s also not the kind of subtle bug that keeps me up at night worrying about it.
It did reinforce how nice it would be if we had some kind of tooling support to break nasty header file dependencies automatically, but if wishes were horses.. Maybe some day we’ll have some kind of SAT-solver for symbol dependencies that can handle all our different architectures and configurations, but right now it’s just a manual pain that occasionally bites us.
Aside from silly header file noise, the last week was mostly dominated by the networking pull, which accounts for about half of the changes (mellanox drivers and selftests stand out, but there’s other smaller things in there too). Some RCU fixes stand out. Outside of the networking stuff, it’s mostly various small driver fixes (gpu, rdma, sound and pinctrl being much of it), and some minor architecture noise (arm, x86, powerpc). But it’s all fairly small.
So there it is, a shiny new kernel. Give it a whirl before all you people start sending me the pull requests for the merge window, which I’ll start handling tomorrow.”
Types of Kernel Release
There are several main categories into which kernel releases may fall:
- Prepatch: Prepatch or “RC” kernels are mainline kernel pre-releases that are mostly aimed at other kernel developers and Linux enthusiasts. They must be compiled from source and usually contain new features that must be tested before they can be put into a stable release. Prepatch kernels are maintained and released by Linus Torvalds.
- Mainline: Mainline tree is maintained by Linus Torvalds. It’s the tree where all new features are introduced and where all the exciting new development happens. New mainline kernels are released every 2-3 months.
- Stable: After each mainline kernel is released, it is considered “stable.” Any bug fixes for a stable kernel are backported from the mainline tree and applied by a designated stable kernel maintainer. There are usually only a few bugfix kernel releases until next mainline kernel becomes available — unless it is designated a “longterm maintenance kernel.” Stable kernel updates are released on as-needed basis, usually once a week.
- Longterm: There are usually several “longterm maintenance” kernel releases provided for the purposes of backporting bugfixes for older kernel trees. Only important bugfixes are applied to such kernels and they don’t usually see very frequent releases, especially for older trees.
Install Linux Kernel 5.8 in Ubuntu
Run the following commands in terminal to install Linux Kernel 5.8 in Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get update wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-headers-5.8.0-050800_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_all.deb wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-headers-5.8.0-050800-generic_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_amd64.deb wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-050800-generic_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_amd64.deb wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-modules-5.8.0-050800-generic_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i *.deb sudo apt-get update
Once installed, please restart the system to apply changes.