Different kernel versions across different machines Ff594uriyrs h21;it UL50dim Bb
I have 2 different machines, with the same OS version, and the same sources list.
$ lsb_release -a
LSB Version: core-9.20170808ubuntu1-noarch:security-9.20170808ubuntu1-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic
I update my packages using the following commands on pc-1 and pc-2:
$ sudo apt update
<...>
$ sudo apt -y upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
However, I get different kernel versions for each machine:
pc-1 $ uname -r
5.0.0-25-generic
and
pc-2 $ uname -r
4.15.0-58-generic
Why is that, and how can I safely update pc-2 to the latest generic kernel using official repos and not ppas ?
Is there a way to debug/print the kernel selection logic in apt ?
EDIT:
expanding on the accepted answer, the current HWE status can be found using:
$ hwe-support-status
Your Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) is supported until avril 2023.
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Instead of editing the question body you should either post an answer of your own, edit the accepted answer to include that information or comment the accepted answer to let the author do it for you. Question bodies shouldn't contain answers... – Bakuriu 16 mins ago
1 Answer
Ubuntu 18.04 either upgraded from a prior release (17.10 or 16.04 LTS) or installed with the original ISO, or 18.04.1 ISO uses the standard kernel 4.15.
Ubuntu 18.04.2 and later ISO installs default to using the HWE or hardware-enablement stack kernel, ie. the kernel upgrades to using 18.10's kernel, then 19.04 (5.0 is the current 19.04 kernel being used), then 19.10 kernel, before finally settling on the 20.04 kernel.
The HWE kernel can also be selected as an option for older 18.04/18.04.1/upgraded-to-18.04 machines too.
One of your machines uses HWE kernel, one does not.
Installing the HWE stack is simple:
DESKTOP
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04SERVER
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack
