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Once again, users of the Ubuntu-based Linux Lite distribution are the first to be able to install and try the latest and greatest Linux kernel, in this case Linux 5.9.
Linux kernel 5.9 was announced a few hours ago by Linus Torvalds and, as expected, it brings a bunch of updated and new drivers for better hardware support, along with several new features and various improvements.
Highlights include support for the Unicore architecture, Zstandard (Zsdt) compression support for building x86 kernels, performance improvements and new features for Btrfs file system, including a new rescue= mount option for rescue-related operations, as well as inline encryption support for the EXT4 and F2FS filesystems.
In addition, Linux kernel 5.9 brings support for the x86 FSGSBASE instructions, full support for asynchronous buffered read operations in the io_uring subsystem, capacity awareness for the deadline scheduler, a new sysctl knob, a new close_range() system call, and support for extended attributes for NFS 4.2 clients.
The hardware support has been extended with support for Intel “Keem Bay” Movidius VPUs, NVIDIA Tegra210 external memory controllers, NVIDIA Tegra audio processing engines, Broadcom BCM2711 DVP clock controllers, Chrome OS embedded-controller regulators, as well as several Qualcomm clock controllers.
Installing Linux kernel 5.9 on Linux Lite
If you need any of the features implemented in Linux kernel 5.9, you can now install it on your Linux Lite computer in just a few minutes, following the next instructions. However, if you don’t need them and your Linux Lite installation is working perfectly, you should refrain from installing it.
Also, keep in mind that if you use proprietary drivers, such as the Nvidia graphics driver, you should possess the necessary knowledge to rebuild and reinstall any third-party kernel modules you might have installed, as well as to troubleshoot your installation in case anything goes wrong.
With that out of the way, you have two methods to install Linux kernel 5.9 in Linux Lite. First, a graphical one, which involves opening the Lite Tweaks app from the System menu and selecting the “Kernel Installer” feature.
Second, a command-line one, which involves opening a terminal emulator and running the sudo apt update && sudo apt install linux-headers-linuxlite-5.9.0 linux-image-linuxlite-5.9.0 -y commands.
This will download and install Linux kernel 5.9 on your Linux Lite computer. Once the installation is over, you will have to reboot your computer for the new kernel version to be correctly installed.
Linux kernel 5.9 is supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit installations of the Linux Lite 5.x, 4.x, and 3.x series. The Linux Lite developer are currently working hard on the next major release, Linux Lite 5.2, which will be out soon based on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa) and Linux kernel 5.4 LTS by default.
Last updated 4 years ago
