Can I update my Kernel so it supports my hardware?

[John1776]

I would like to use Pop_OS on my laptop, but because my machine is quite new the current kernel version doesn't support certain features on it. I had PopOS installed for a few hours and things like changing brightness levels of my screen wouldn't work, I had pretty bad screen tearing and audio wasn't very good (mostly because of clipping).

```
Product name
HP ENVY x360 Laptop - 13-ay0001nw
===========================================================================
Microprocessor
AMD Ryzen™ 7 4700U (2.0 GHz base clock, up to 4.1 GHz max boost clock, 8 MB L3 cache, 8 cores)
===========================================================================
Chipset
AMD Integrated SoC
===========================================================================
Memory, standard
16 GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM (onboard)
===========================================================================
Video graphics
AMD Radeon™ Graphics
===========================================================================
Hard drive
512 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
===========================================================================
Display
33.8 cm (13.3") diagonal, FHD (1920 x 1080), multitouch-enabled, IPS, edge-to-edge glass, micro-edge, BrightView, Corning® Gorilla® Glass NBT™, 400 nits, 100% sRGB
===========================================================================
Wireless connectivity
Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2x2) Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® 5 combo
```

I installed Manjaro on it and it works fine, but because I have very bad internet, and I use it from time to time. I don't want to use a rolling release distro on it. I would much rather prefer a stable one like PopOS which is based on Ubuntu, that's why I'm posting it here, I didn't get any replies on the PopOS forum.
I read some things and it basically looks like I need a 5.8+ version of the kernel. My question is how can I/should I/is it possible for me to install a newer kernel on PopOS and would that solve things like screen tearing or most importantly lack of brightness levels?

 

[captain-sensible]

thing is the way the kernel is compiled with lots of choices the kernel is just a part of it , its all the other supporting stuff libraries even, python etc. So stating the obvious if it was just a question of the kernel distro like Slackware would have had a release every 6 months but so far its been four years since 14.2 and they are working on it daily.

if Ethernet wifi card is main problem we could have a look and see what goes with it. Need ideally vendor ID and product ID.

Can you give output of : lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
// as ROOT please


latest Kernel is 5.8.13 but having a quick look 5.4.69 looks like LTS ?

 

[dos2unix]

I would much rather prefer a stable one like PopOS which is based on Ubuntu, that's why I'm posting it here, I didn't get any replies on the PopOS forum.
I read some things and it basically looks like I need a 5.8+ version of the kernel. My question is how can I/should I/is it possible for me to install a newer kernel on PopOS and would that solve things like screen tearing or most importantly lack of brightness levels?

Hmmmm..... this almost two opposing things.

You want a stable release that doesn't update the kernel very often, but you you want a very recent kernel. Usually this doesn't happen from a vendor Linux.

Screen tearing and monitor issues are normally more related to video cards, and video drivers
than kernel versions.

Ubuntu 20 LTS is 5.4 if I recall. I doubt you will get 5.8 soon here.
Fedora 32 is 5.8.13, but it frequently gets updated (weekly usually).
Of course you can always disable automatic updates.

 

[John1776]

Hmmmm..... this almost two opposing things.

You want a stable release that doesn't update the kernel very often, but you you want a very recent kernel. Usually this doesn't happen from a vendor Linux.

Screen tearing and monitor issues are normally more related to video cards, and video drivers
than kernel versions.

Ubuntu 20 LTS is 5.4 if I recall. I doubt you will get 5.8 soon here.
Fedora 32 is 5.8.13, but it frequently gets updated (weekly usually).
Of course you can always disable automatic updates.

I'm thinking about Fedora 33, it was released a week ago or so, and it has the newest version of GNOME which I would like to try. Do you think its a good idea?

 

[dos2unix]

I'm thinking about Fedora 33, it was released a week ago or so, and it has the newest version of GNOME which I would like to try. Do you think its a good idea?

I'm probably biased. (aren't we all) but I run Fedora as my main OS on most of my systems.
I only have 1 windows laptop out of 9 computers. Don't get me wrong, I like MInt and Ubuntu just fine.
But I like staying on the newer edge, and I use enterprise Linux (redhat) at my job.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I have been running a rolling release distribution for a year now. I haven't run into any problems yet, I think there are more advantages for having bleeding edge on Desktop systems than there are disadvantages. If something does break they are reported and most of them are fixed quite fast.

 

[dos2unix]

I'm thinking about Fedora 33, it was released a week ago or so,

It seems this is still a beta version. (As of 10/04/2020)

 

[John1776]

Is fedora a stable distro or a rolling release? Also my laptop has one SSD with 512, and I have Windows 10 there (I need it). How easy would it be to dual boot?

 

[dos2unix]

Is fedora a stable distro or a rolling release? Also my laptop has one SSD with 512, and I have Windows 10 there (I need it). How easy would it be to dual boot?

Rolling, but you can disable auto-updates.
Dual boot is easy, easier if windows is installed first.