Ubuntu kernel bump release and build kernel

I am trying to build the kernel for Ubuntu Groovy 5.8.0-43-generic #49-Ubuntu as I have made some changes to the USB XHCI drivers. These are changes that have been suggested to fix an issue logged at bugzilla.kernel.

So far I have cloned the Ubuntu Groovy repo and checkout a branch on the tag Ubuntu-5.8.0-43.49

All build tools have been installed and the build does succeed. The following are the steps I have taken

fakeroot debian/rules clean
dch -i

Here I attempt to bump the version so that when I go to install the new built kernel there are no conflicts with the existing kernel. I want to preserve the existing kernel and just boot the new one for testing. The top of the changelog looks like this:

linux (5.8.0-43.49ubuntu1) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium * groovy/linux: 5.8.0-43.49ubuntu1 -- myname <myname@mmyname-XPS-15-9500> Thu, 25 Feb 2021 21:00:54 +0000

Then I ran

LANG=C fakeroot debian/rules binary-headers binary-generic binary-perarch

After the build succeeds as expected I have a bunch of .deb packages, the main ones being

• linux-headers-5.8.0-43_5.8.0-43.49ubuntu1_all.deb
• linux-headers-5.8.0-43-generic_5.8.0-43.49ubuntu1_amd64.deb
• linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-43-generic_5.8.0-43.49ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Note the ubuntu1 in the name of the .deb files matches the version bump added to the changelog in step 2.

Then I copied the 3 .deb packages above to the PC I want to install the new kernel on and there ran

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

The header .deb files install no problem, however linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-43-generic_5.8.0-43.49ubuntu1_amd64.deb fails with the following conflict:

dpkg: regarding linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-43-generic_5.8.0-43.49ubuntu1_amd64.deb containing linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-43-generic: linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-43-generic conflicts with linux-image-5.8.0-43-generic linux-image-5.8.0-43-generic (version 5.8.0-43.49) is present and installed.

This states that the linux-image deb package contains a kernel version that is already installed.

If I extract the linux-image deb package the boot directory contains vmlinuz-5.8.0-43-generic, the usr/share/doc/linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-43-generic/changelog shows the modified changelog mentioned earlier.

I don't understand why the bump version in the changelog does no prevent this conflict. I have searched for an answer to this and the only suggestion to prevent this conflict was to use dch -i as shown above.

Thanks

1 Answer

Go with a .50ubuntu1is49 like I have seen some packages named in Ubuntu. This should get you on top of it until the next release anyways or you may want to go with even higher than 50 to have your version always installed and chosen as the highest. You apparently do not care to run a stock kernel so why let one even attempt to install.