Installing older kernels

User Support
21

Hi @tr_seven,

welcome to the Qubes-OS world.

I searched for you, from my understanding the 5.4 kernel rpms are in the repository folder BUT no more in the repository index.

The repository index doesn’t contains the 5.4 kernels ( repodata/repomd.xml → repodata/388699c42a805eee80e2256802fabc572d22734f38b1da841d6ce705d50f8c85-primary.xml.gz ).

Search in the current repository : sudo qubes-dom0-update --show-output --console --action=repoquery 'kernel*' → no 5.4 kernels.

Search In the testing repository : sudo qubes-dom0-update --show-output --console --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-current-testing --action=repoquery 'kernel*' | grep "5.4" → no 5.4 kernels.

Search in the security testing repository : sudo qubes-dom0-update --show-output --console --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-security-testing --action=repoquery 'kernel*' | grep "5.4" → 5.4.83 and 5.4.98 are available.

So, from my point of view, 2 solutions are available for you, the choice depends on your skills and the risks :

  • get the 5.4.83 or 5.4.98 kernel from the security testing repository (example : sudo qubes-dom0-update --check-only --show-output --console --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-security-testing --action=install kernel-1000:5.4.98, remove --check-only for an install action)
  • download the 5.4.88 kernel rpm file from a VM, copy it to dom0 (see the copying-to-dom0 doc), and install it with sudo dnf install <the rpm file with absolute or relative path>, the new kernel should be available from the grub menu (else search “grub.cfg” in this forum).

Related documentation:

  • qubes-dom0-update --help and man qubes-dom0-update
  • man dnf (repoquery, install)
1 Like
22

Hey thanks for the detailed response and confirming I’m not crazy. I’m assuming if the rpms are not in the repo index they’re effectively unsigned, so at that point I’m just trusting that nothing nasty has been injected into yum.qubes-os.org. So I might lean towards security-testing.

Since the description of security-testing is the packages go there first then get migrated to current, it seems like maybe part of that migration is broken? If all the 5.4’s never quite make it into the current repo.

My system that worked great on release 4.0 is completely unstable on 4.1 w/ the 5.10 kernel so I have to try something.

23

Did you try newer kernels?
You can install kernel-latest from current repo for kernel 5.16 or kernel-latest from current-testing repo for kernel 5.17.

24

I will try newer ones eventually, I didn’t want to go too far on a tangent with kernel debugging in this thread, just wanted to figure out the issue I was having with installing an older version.

To anyone else wanting to try downgrading from 5.10 to a 5.4 kernel in qubes 4.1, the one in security-testing is working great for me so far.