Linux Kernel 4.3 ships with 20.6 million lines of code and includes support for Intel's Skylake line of CPUs. This means Skylake-based hardware can now run efficiently and with good stability.
Performance improvements are noticeable on some hardware running this kernel build on Ubuntu-based Linux distributions (I have not tested this personally; this is based on user reports).
While 4.3 is a stable release, Linux Kernel 4.4 will be the next LTS (Long Term Support) build, which is currently in RC-2.
You can use the steps below to upgrade the kernel on Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based Linux distributions.
Installing
It’s really easy to install on Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based Linux distributions. First, you need to know whether your system is 64-bit or 32-bit.
You can check this by running the following command:
uname -m
Download the appropriate packages for your system below (the installation process is the same for both).
64-Bit
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.3-wily/linux-headers-4.3.0-040300-generic_4.3.0-040300.201511020949_amd64.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.3-wily/linux-headers-4.3.0-040300_4.3.0-040300.201511020949_all.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.3-wily/linux-image-4.3.0-040300-generic_4.3.0-040300.201511020949_amd64.deb
32-Bit
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.3-unstable/linux-headers-4.3.0-040300_4.3.0-040300.201511012034_all.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.3-unstable/linux-headers-4.3.0-040300-generic_4.3.0-040300.201511012034_i386.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.3-unstable/linux-image-4.3.0-040300-generic_4.3.0-040300.201511012034_i386.deb
Install the packages we just downloaded:
sudo dpkg -i linux-*.deb
Update the bootloader:
sudo update-grub
Now, reboot the system to switch to the new kernel you just installed.
If you have issues with this kernel build, you can uninstall it in a few steps:
sudo apt-get purge linux-headers-4.3* linux-image-4.3*
Remove any leftover dependencies that are no longer required:
sudo apt-get autoremove; sudo apt-get clean
Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, leave a comment below.
