Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Linux, the latest long term support release from Canonical, is due to come out on April 21, 2022. As with all new LTS versions of Ubuntu, it will have a newer kernel version from other past releases of Ubuntu.
In this tutorial, we will discuss the kernel of Ubuntu 22.04, and show you how to check the kernel version on your own system. You will also see how to upgrade or downgrade the kernel version in Ubuntu.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- What is the kernel version in Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish?
- How to check the kernel version with commands
- How to upgrade or downgrade kernel version
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish |
| Software | N/A |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
When people say “Linux,” what are they actually referring to? Linux isn’t technically an operating system itself, but a kernel that serves as the foundation for a fully packaged operating system.
Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Kernel Version
Ubuntu 22.04 will be released with kernel version 5.15. This is one of the newest kernel versions available, but has endured enough testing to yield a stable system for Ubuntu 22.04. It comes with some new features to expand on support for new and older technologies alike.
Here are just some of the new features of kernel 5.15, which also means new features of Ubuntu 22.04.
- A new NTFS file-system driver called NTFS3
- A new In-kernel SMB server
- Improved support for read-write operations
- Support for ACLs
- New hardware support for AMD CPUs and GPUs, Apple’s M1 chip, Intel Alder Lake CPUs
- Various other hardware support and optimizations
How to Check Kernel Version
We can use the uname Linux command to see our system’s kernel version. Open a terminal and execute the following command to see yours.
$ uname -srm Linux 5.15.0-25-generic x86_64
The output shows us that we are running kernel version 5.15.0-25.
Here is what each of these numbers mean:
5– Kernel version.15– Major revision.0– Minor revision.25– Patch number.
The x86-64 indicates the CPU architecture that the kernel is compiled for.
To see more information about your particular kernel build, which gives us distribution-specific details, you can also add the -v option.
$ uname -srmv Linux 5.15.0-25-generic #25-Ubuntu SMP Wed Mar 30 15:54:22 UTC 2022 x86_64
You can also check the kernel version of Ubuntu 22.04 with the other following commands:
$ hostnamectl AND $ cat /proc/version
How to Upgrade Ubuntu Linux Kernel
The kernel on your Ubuntu 22.04 Linux system should get upgraded along with all the other software packages you have installed. You can either use the GUI Software Updater tool, or run the following commands in terminal to upgrade the system kernel to the latest version:
$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt full-upgrade
Note that
apt full-upgrade is necessary here, not simply apt upgrade, as many users are in the habit of typing. The full-upgrade portion of the command will instruct Ubuntu to also upgrade the system kernel. You will then need to reboot the system in order to utilize the new kernel. How to Downgrade Ubuntu Linux Kernel
When your Ubuntu system upgrades the Linux kernel, it will also keep the old one available on the system. This is done in case you encounter problems with the recently upgraded kernel, and have need to downgrade to the older version.
You can use the following command in terminal to remove the current kernel from your system, which should automatically downgrade you to the next most recent version.
$ sudo apt remove linux-image-$(uname -r) linux-headers-$(uname -r)
You will need to reboot your system after the downgrade, in order to start utilizing the other kernel.
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we learned about the kernel version for Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Linux. We also saw how to check the kernel version through various command line methods, and how to upgrade or downgrade to a different kernel version. The kernel is the central part of the operating system, and keeping it up to date is essential for the continued security of stability of Ubuntu.