Linux Kernel 2.6.37 installation guide for Ubuntu Linux

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This short walkthrough describes how to get the latest linux kernel working under Ubuntu Linux without having to compile it yourself.

This tutorial should work with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux (10.04 and 10.10 ) and most distributions based on these versions of Ubuntu Linux like Mint.

The included kernel files have been compiled using the generic ubuntu configuration.
Note: nVIDIA ForceWare drivers are automatically installed using DKMS, if you have these installed and up-to-date.

Installation Guide

  1. Download Download your kernel headers package;

    linux-headers-2.6.37-020637_2.6.37-020637.201101050908_all.deb
  2. And more of that;

    I386: linux-headers-2.6.37-020637-generic_2.6.37-020637.201101050908_i386.deb

    AMD64: linux-headers-2.6.37-020637-generic_2.6.37-020637.201101050908_amd64.deb
  3. Download your kernel compile;

    I386: linux-image-2.6.37-020637-generic_2.6.37-020637.201101050908_i386.deb

    AMD64: linux-image-2.6.37-020637-generic_2.6.37-020637.201101050908_amd64.deb
  4. Install the files in the same order (else it won`t work!)
  5. In the terminal run:

    sudo update-grub
  6. Reboot and select the kernel from the bootloader menu

    If it`s not there check all steps (and ofcourse errors)

And if you want, you can find the source here:

59 thoughts on “Linux Kernel 2.6.37 installation guide for Ubuntu Linux”

  1. Thanks, I’ll give it a try. The number of freezes has declined significantly for me since the last kernel update (Mint10 here), but the system still isn’t stable, so I hope .37 will finally fix the issue for good (although I am not very hopeful 😉

    Al the best & thanks Uwe

    Reply ↓

  2. Great! This fixed my HDMI sound =) on intel i915 video chipset laptop. I can hear the sound on my TV at last.

    Reply ↓

  3. Awesome, installed and works great. Dunno about you guys but my net connection improved. Website load instantly. Is there a BFS patch out for this Kernel yet?

    Reply ↓

  4. And 8 hours later I find this site that says, “Oh, just download a few deb’s and install them, update grub and reboot.”

    ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! This is wonderful!!! Thank you Ramon van Belzen!!!

    (Unfortunately, I’m still having issues with my VT6421 SATA RAID card + WD HDs which 2.6.37 was going to fix)

    Reply ↓

  5. Hey with this Kernel my resume from suspend started working again, Awesome! If you could compile it with the PAE option it would be greater still 🙂

    Reply ↓

  6. Hi Ramon, Great article. This is very informative. I was able to rebuild the kernel based on your information. Thanks!

    Reply ↓

  8. Hi Ramon,

    I ran across your posting regarding Linux Kernel 2.6.37 installation guide for Ubuntu Linux on the internet. I have some basic knowledge of building Linux kernel and plan to use RTAI on top of Linux for my embedded project. I ran into some problem while trying to install HART tookkit by following the Installation for Ubuntu 10.04 with comedi:

    http://hart.sourceforge.net/rtai_installation_10_04.html

    I will very appreciate if you can shed some light on the RTAI installation on the following six questions:

    1. If this the right procedure that I have to install Comedi, scilab, QRTAILAB, and HART? What about eFLTK or Mesa?

    2. Should I start with 3.8 RTAI?

    3. Does it mean that I can only build 3.8 RTAI based on Linux 2.6.32? How about installing RTAI on the top of 2.6.37?

    4. Do I have to rebuild Linux kernel from source before proceeding with RTAI installation?

    5. If the RTAI installation procedure from hart.sourceforge.net is not correct, can you provide me with another URL?

    6. My goal is to have a target automatically executes my application upon power up without user logging and manually execution. Is this doable with Ubuntu and RTAI?

    Thank you very much!
    Jew-Dong

    Reply ↓

  9. which package do i install for an Intel x86 on 64-bit? i386.deb or amd64.deb?

    i386 seems to be compatible with intel x86 while the 64-bit that i need seems to be for amd only. i mean i’m sure i should use the amd64 one but just wanted to make sure this is not exclusively build for amd.

    please clarify. thanks

    Reply ↓

  11. Hi Ramon,

    I’ve installed the Ubuntu 2.6.37-020636 Generic x86_64 from the PPA archive as you’ve instructed, and the kernel is indeed incredible. I am experiencing some difficulties however. Upon booting in to the session I get a fatal “error inserting crc32_Intel… no such device” message. The system continues to boot fine, although my Gnome battery monitor seems to “estimate” forever under the new kernel once in the live session, without displaying time or percentage values at all. Can you please help.

    Thanks so much,
    Matthew Shuster
    Montréal, Canada

    Reply ↓

  12. Looks like it’s a problem with my shiny brand new BTRFS file system, that hadn’t been resolved. Back to 2.6.35.x until 11.04.

    Reply ↓

  15. hi

    the kernel worked for me too. Just have one question.

    When i visit linux.org, there is a 2.6.37 kernel available there as well, while this kernel is from kernel.ubuntu.com. are this two kernels similar ???

    regards

    Reply ↓

      • thanks for your guidance . to know more on this i downloded a utility called meld and it showed me the exact difference btwn two folders

        my other query is

        where is the source file (.c) files for the commands like vi, cat, cp are located. how to edit/update those file and how to recompile so that this file actually work with the modified code

        your help is appreciated

      • thanks for the answer

        i mean to say that inside the kernel 2.6.37 where are the source file (.c) for these commands located i.e. in which directory. e.g. the vi command is located in /usr/bin but where is the source file i.e. .c file located .

        how to edit/update the command source file and how to compile and run these file.

        your help is appreciated

  17. dear ramoonus thank you for your reply to my earlier post.

    It would be great if you can clear one of my doubt.

    when i see your .deb file for the kernel 2.6.37 in archive manager, i find no source .c file in it, but when the kernel is installed, using your deb file, i can see the source file in /usr/src folder so my question is

    from where these source file came when its not there in your .deb file. ??

    Reply ↓

  18. Ramoonus: I just spend like 2 days, trying to compile my own kernel, and then, after I installed 3 deb’s, it just works :s

    its sooo annoying, but awesome 😀

    Reply ↓

  22. You are the man! This was the solution to fixing crappy wireless on my new hackbook air 11″

    also everything else seems to be snappier and more stable! awesome..

    anyone know why this wasn’t included in 10.10 by default or at least in a recent update?

    Reply ↓

    • Glad you just posted this! I actually had a freeze up with rc6 last night and my brcm80211 drivers… had to go back to the proprietary drivers. Hopefully this will fix it again!

      Reply ↓

      • Yeah, this made the brcm80211 driver much more stable on my macbook air 11″… although I just cant figure out why my MCP89 audio device is no longer working! It stopped working after I updated from 2.6.35 to 2.6.37… and still is not working with 2.6.38. If I’m missing something obvious with having to update my ALSA drivers or something let me know, I’ve been stuck on this for a while! Thanks again for sharing and helping people out…

  27. Danke am bestens für vorkompilierter Kernel 2.6.37! Es funktioniert ohne Probleme…
    Noch mal danke und ich wünsche viel Erfolg!
    Paolo – Slowakei

    Reply ↓

  31. I am trying to get GPU working on sandy bridge i5 computer with linux.

    I follow your instructions, it’s the only one that seems to works, I tried various
    recipes from the web like to recompile
    kernel 2.6.38 with kernelcheck among others, but either the screen freeze
    or it’s working with the fbdev driver not the intel driver.

    Following your instruction for the 2.6.37.. image works and xvinfo shows that
    I have the intel i915 driver loaded.
    Now how can I test if the graphics acceleration is working properly,
    what program do you use for that.

    I have tested it with XBMC but when
    I launch XBMC t the graphic screen hang, and I get error with dmesg

    ===================
    OUTPUT FROM DMESG:
    [ 119.197948] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed… GPU hung
    [ 119.199553] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -11 (awaiting 12700 at 12690, next 12701)
    [ 119.199610] [drm:i915_reset] *ERROR* Failed to reset chip.

    ============
    xvinfo:
    X-Video Extension version 2.2
    screen #0
    Adaptor #0: “Intel(R) Textured Video”
    number of ports: 16
    port base: 75
    operations supported: PutImage
    supported visuals:
    depth 24, visualID 0x21
    number of attributes: 3
    “XV_BRIGHTNESS” (range -128 to 127)
    client settable attribute
    client gettable attribute (current value is 0)
    “XV_CONTRAST” (range 0 to 255)
    client settable attribute
    client gettable attribute (current value is 0)
    “XV_SYNC_TO_VBLANK” (range -1 to 1)
    client settable attribute
    client gettable attribute (current value is 1)
    maximum XvImage size: 2048 x 2048
    Number of image formats: 5
    id: 0x32595559 (YUY2)
    guid: 59555932-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
    bits per pixel: 16
    number of planes: 1
    type: YUV (packed)
    id: 0x32315659 (YV12)
    guid: 59563132-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
    bits per pixel: 12
    number of planes: 3
    type: YUV (planar)
    id: 0x30323449 (I420)
    guid: 49343230-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
    bits per pixel: 12
    number of planes: 3
    type: YUV (planar)
    id: 0x59565955 (UYVY)
    guid: 55595659-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
    bits per pixel: 16
    number of planes: 1
    type: YUV (packed)
    id: 0x434d5658 (XVMC)
    guid: 58564d43-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
    bits per pixel: 12
    number of planes: 3
    type: YUV (planar)
    ============
    vainfo:
    vainfo: VA API version: 0.32
    vainfo: Driver version: i965 Driver 0.1
    vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
    VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
    VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
    VAProfileH264Baseline : VAEntrypointVLD
    VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
    VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
    VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
    VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
    VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD

    Reply ↓

  32. Hi Ramon,

    I am pretty sure I followed all the steps, but I still can’t enable wireless. My wifi card is a intel centrino wireless N-100. When I click on the wifi logo in the upper right corner, the wireless options are gray, as such, unavailable.

    I think i followed your steps accurately because when I did the reboot, I was able to select the kernel.

    Any idea what I should do?

    Thanks
    Max

    Reply ↓

      • I am a rookie Linux user so it’s the first time I install kernels… I have the Ubuntu 10.10 installation CD and I found your blog when looking for a solution regarding my wifi issue…

      • Btw I upgraded to 11.10 and wifi is still not working… I assume I can’t use the kernels above anymore?

  33. Hi again!

    I installed Ubuntu 11.10, I know that my wifi card is detected because I tried the lspci l grep -i net command in the terminal and the card type was displayed (Intel Centrino Wireless-N 100).

    Are the above kernels compatible with 11.10 or should I install something else?

    Thanks

    Reply ↓

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