How To Install Linux Kernel 5.15 on Debian 11

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Linux Kernel 5.15 on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Linux Kernel 5.15 has been released on Halloween, on October 31st, 2021 with lots of new interesting new features. The Linux 5.15 kernel release further improves the support for AMD CPUs and GPUs, Intel’s 12th Gen CPUs, and brings new features like NTFS3, KSMBD (CIFS/SMB3), and further Apple M1 support, amongst many other changes and additions.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the GoAccess web log analyzer on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 11 (Bullseye).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Linux Kernel 5.15 on Debian 11 Bullseye

Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install build-essential dwarves python3 libncurses-dev flex bison libssl-dev bc libelf-dev

Step 2. Installing Linux Kernel 5.15 on Debian 11.

• Install Linux Kernel 5.15 from the official repository.

By default, Linux Kernel is not available on Debian 11 base repository. So, now we download the latest stable version of Linux Kernel from the official page:

wget https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.15.13.tar.xz

Next, import the GPG key:

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.15.13.tar.sign

After that, extract the file archive:

tar xvf linux-5.15.13.tar.xz

Next, make configurations to the Linux Kernel and specify the needed kernel modules:

cd linux-5.15.13
sudo cp -v /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config

Then, compile the Linux Kernel 5.15 using the following command below:

sudo make bzImage
make localmodconfig

Finally, install Linux Kernel modules:

sudo make modules
sudo make modules_install
sudo make install

For the changes made to take place, we need to update our GRUB on the Debian system:

sudo update-grub
sudo reboot -i

Step 3. Verify Linux Kernel 5.15 Installation.

After logging back into your Debian system, run the following command to check the kernel version running:

uname -a

Output:

Linux debian 5.15.13 #1 SMP Thu Jan 09 03:46:07 EST 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Linux Kernel. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the latest version of the Linux Kernel 5.15 on Debian 11 Bullseye. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Kernel website.