The stable release of Linux Kernel 3.18 has been released this weekend. Linus Torvalds wrote on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (lkml.org):
It’s been a quiet week, and the patch from rc7 is tiny, so 3.18 is out.
I’d love to say that we’ve figured out the problem that plagues 3.17 for a couple of people, but we haven’t. At the same time, there’s absolutely no point in having everybody else twiddling their thumbs when a couple of people are actively trying to bisect an older issue, so holding up the release just didn’t make sense. Especially since that would just have then held things up entirely over the holiday
break.
So the merge window for 3.19 is open, and DaveJ will hopefully get his bisection done (or at least narrow things down sufficiently that we have that “Ahaa” moment) over the next week. But in solidarity with
Dave (and to make my life easier too ;) let’s try to avoid introducing any _new_ nasty issues, ok?
Linus
What’s New in the Linux Kernel 3.18:
The Linux 3.18 Kernel brings many great changes, here’s some of the highlights for end-users:
- Unified Video Decoder (UVD) support for old ATI/AMD GPUs of the Radeon HD 3000 series.
- Re-clocking improvements for AMD’s Radeon driver.
- Userptr support for AMD Radeon GPUs.
- Razer Sabertooth support and other hardware input devices improvements for gamers.
- Faster suspend and resume for large Linux servers.
- Btrfs and F2FS improvements.
- Para-virtualized SCSI (pvSCSI) support for Xen virtualization.
- DisplayPort audio support, fan control improvements and various other enhancements for open-source NVIDIA driver.
- OverlayFS was finally merged into Linux Kernel 3.18
Install / Upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.18 in Ubuntu:
The Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the binary packages of this kernel release, available for download at the link below:
First check out your OS type, 32-bit (i386) or 64-bit (amd64), then download and install the packages below in turn:
- linux-headers-3.18.0-031800_xxx_all.deb
- linux-headers-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.xxx_i386/amd64.deb
- linux-image-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.xxx_i386/amd64.deb
For Ubuntu Servers without UI, run the commands below one by one to download & install the kernel debs.
For 64-bit system, run:
cd /tmp/ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_amd64.deb wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.0-031800_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_all.deb wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-image-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.18.0-*.deb linux-image-3.18.0-*.deb
For 32-bit system, run:
cd /tmp/ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_i386.deb wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.0-031800_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_all.deb wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-image-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.18.0-*.deb linux-image-3.18.0-*.deb
When done, run sudo update-grub command to refresh grub bootloader and restart your computer.
NOTE: If you’re running with a proprietary video driver, either switch to open-source driver or reinstall the latest (For Nvidia, >= 343.36).
If for some reason, the new kernel does not work properly for you, reboot with the previous Kernel (Grub boot loader -> Advanced -> select previous kernel) and run below command to remove Linux Kernel 3.18:
sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.18.0-* linux-image-3.18.0-* && sudo update-grub
Kernel 3.18 appears to be fixing Ubuntu bug #1297286 (wireless disconnecting). Since I upgraded the kernel from 3.13 to 3.18 the issue appears to be gone completely. Using Asus USB-N53 adapter with Ralink RT3572 chipset. Stable wifi connection in 802.11n mode (300mbits) connecting to local network and no disconnects anymore! Highly recommended!! OS: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS.
NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-*.run won’t install on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty with the 3.18.1 Linux kernel from vivid, since trusty has GCC 4.6 and vivid has GCC 4.8
Thank you brother for your wonderful site. As usual you’re very consistent with doing things the right way. What do you know about touchpad issues (especially those within Acer laptops) from Ubuntu 14.04.2, 14.10, and up? An ongoing problem I’m having is that
right click is broken – it acts as left-click. Also, if you try to highlight anything or drag something, the touchpad wil only sense one finger, therefore you can only use one finger.
Any advice would be appreciated. Ubuntu 14.04.2, Acer V3-572P-51BA.
Please add one more line after dpkg
sudo update-grub
When done, restart your computer
Thanks @Krishna, the dpkg command should automatically do the update-grub.
I am running Ubuntu 14.04 and I want to upgrade my kernel from 3.13 to 3.18 to see if it fixes the problem with my laptop dock. I followed the steps above but it doesn’t seem to work. I installed the .debs updated the grub and rebooted my laptop and it still says its using 3.13 kernel.
Just wanted to let you know after trying this is crashed my PC.
It no longer boots as normal, i have to enter Recovery Mode every single time and there seems to be no way to fix this now unless i do a complete new install.
Thanks for ruining my laptop.
Just so you know, you did this at your own risks, this factor works for most systems. You’re in charge of what happens as a result of this process.