Beginners • kernel is still the old version after reboot

Hello Community,

I am having trouble understanding how kernel booting works and which package manages kernel updates.

I have a Raspberry Pi 4, and a few days ago, I upgraded to Debian 12 (Bookworm) from Debian 11 (Bullseye).

To check the kernel version, I ran: I assumed this was an older version and that it could be updated. However, I thought the update would happen automatically with apt full-upgrade, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Otherwise, the kernel would already be updated to a more recent version (I did run apt full-upgrade).

After some research, I found that the kernel can be updated using:
- linux-image and linux-header
- raspberrypi-kernel
- rpi-update

I noticed that I didn’t have linux-image or linux-headers installed, but I did have raspberrypi-kernel. My understanding is that raspberrypi-kernel should handle kernel updates during apt upgrade. However, this doesn’t seem to be working for me. Or maybe the latest version of raspberrypi-kernel is still 6.1.21-v8+?

I avoided using rpi-update since it provides, apparently, experimental and potentially unstable kernels.

To try a different approach, I installed linux-image and linux-headers using:After rebooting, the kernel was still the old version (6.1.21-v8+).
I managed to fix the issue by specifying the newer kernel (installed by linux-image and linux-headers) in /boot/config.txt:
This worked, and the system booted with the latest kernel. However, I’m not entirely satisfied with this solution. The main issue is that I’ll need to manually update the kernel variable in /boot/config.txt every time there’s a new kernel version.

I’ve noticed that if the kernel variable isn’t specified, the Raspberry Pi defaults to kernel8.img. Ideally, I’d like a way to ensure that kernel8.img is updated to match the latest vmlinuz version. I thought about creating a symlink to handle this, but I’m unsure if that’s the best approach. Also, maybe, the name will change and it's not gonna be vmlinuz annymore.

Is there a better way to automatically use the latest kernel without manual intervention?

I also give you the sources.list : Thanks for your help

Statistics: Posted by wodix — Wed Dec 04, 2024 5:24 pm — Replies 2 — Views 40

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