How to Install Kernel 5.6 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

Last updated: March 30, 2020

upgrade Linux Kernel

Linux Kernel 5.6 was officially released. Linus Torvalds announced:

So I’ll admit to vacillating between doing this 5.6 release and doing another -rc.

This has a bit more changes than I’d like, but they are mostly from davem’s networking fixes pulls, and David feels comfy with them. And I looked over the diff, and none of it looks scary. It’s just slightly more than I’d have preferred at this stage – not doesn’t really seem worth delaying a release over.

So about half the diff from the final week is network driver fixlets, and some minor core networking fixes. Another 20% is tooling – mostly bpf and netfilter selftests (but also some perf work).

Linux Kernel 5.5 features WireGuard VPN support, and a lot of other notable improvements, including initial USB 4 support, Amazon’s Echo smart speaker, new Intel, AMD, and Arm hardware enablement.

How to Install Linux Kernel 5.6 in Ubuntu:

The mainline kernels do not include any Ubuntu-provided drivers or patches. They are not supported and are not appropriate for production use

The mainline kernel packages for Linux 5.6 are now available for download at the link below:

Download Kernel 5.6

Depends on your OS type, download and install the packages in turns:

  1. linux-headers-5.6.0-xxxxxx_all.deb
  2. linux-headers-5.6.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64.deb
  3. linux-modules-5.6.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64.deb
  4. linux-image-xxx-5.6.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64.deb

Select generic for common system, and lowlatency for a low latency system (e.g. for recording audio), amd64 for 64bit system, or armhf, arm64, etc for other OS types.

Alternatively you can download and install the kernel binaries via terminal commands ( open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T):

For 64-bit OS:

cd /tmp/

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.6/linux-headers-5.6.0-050600_5.6.0-050600.202003292333_all.deb

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.6/linux-headers-5.6.0-050600-generic_5.6.0-050600.202003292333_amd64.deb

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.6/linux-image-unsigned-5.6.0-050600-generic_5.6.0-050600.202003292333_amd64.deb

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.6/linux-modules-5.6.0-050600-generic_5.6.0-050600.202003292333_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Once installed, restart your computer and enjoy!

Uninstall Linux Kernel 5.6:

Restart your machine and select boot with the previous kernel in boot menu ‘Grub2 -> Advanced Option for Ubuntu’. Then run command to remove Linux Kernel 5.5:

sudo dpkg --purge linux-image-unsigned-5.6.0-050600-generic

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5 responses to How to Install Kernel 5.6 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

  1. No WiFi on the new kernel how do you fix that?

  2. I install the Ubuntu18.04.4 , and the default kernel is 5.3.0-46-generic.
    I follow your step to install kernel 5.6.0.

    But I restart the ubuntu , it happen the error

    [ 0.100068] x86/cpu: VMX (outside TXT) disabled by BIOS
    /dev/sdb2: clean, 251661/1222992 files, 2626983/4882432 blocks

    • It means that there is a virtualization option disabled in your bios when it should be enabled, I believe.

      Look up your motherboard and check to see how to enable vmx on your bios.

  3. Thank you for this! I installed the 5.6 kernel on my Kubuntu 20.04 setup and it fixed an issue between my video driver and the 5.4 kernel in 20.04. Everything works perfectly.

  4. Muhannad Alhariri June 23, 2020 at 9:06 am

    Thank you very much.
    In fact after installation of this version of kernel, My wifi driver is not working any more.
    then I managed to get up-to-date kernel from here (at the time of writing this comment)

    https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.6.19/

    If someone had similar issue, try a newer release of the kernel