Kernel upgrade from 4.4 to newer in Debian 11 Bullseye [RICO-3399, arm64]

[bombi]

I'm having trouble upgrading from Debian 11 Bullseye from kernel 4.4.194 to the newer kernel 5.10.x.
Kernel installs correctly: 'sudo apt-get install linux-image-5.10-arm64'.
I check installed kernels: 'dpkg --list | grep linux-image', you can see kernel 5.10.x installed.
After installing GRUB, GRUB also shows the new kernel installed. After restarting the system, the old kernel 4.4 is still there.
The bootloader on startup doesn't seem to see GRUB at all after installing it, the GRUB menu doesn't appear.
When it comes to hardware, it is a RICO-3399 board: https://www.aaeon.com/en/p/pico-itx-boards-rico-3399, arm64 architecture,
chip RockChip RK3399.
I need a kernel update to install docker.
Maybe the problem is with the bootloader?

 

[osprey]

The issue may be grub configurations in the /etc/default/grub file which you can inspect in a terminal.

If you can't see the grub menu on boot up, you may need to change the GRUB_TIMEOUT= , config in /etc/default/grub. Changing it to GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 will present the menu for 10 seconds duration on screen. You can change the config and run: update-grub to give it effect.

The problem of not loading the latest installed kernel may also be a case of the way in which grub is configured in your system. What is the GRUB_DEFAULT= , configuration in your /etc/default/grub file?

If, for example, it is: GRUB_DEFAULT=0, then the machine will boot the first entry in the /etc/boot/grub.cfg file. If it is GRUB_DEFAULT=saved, it's likely to just boot the last kernel that has been being booted, which is the behaviour you describe. You could check the /etc/boot/grub.cfg file and see which kernel is listed first. You can do that by navigating down to the first line that says "Loading Linux" and the version number will show. Subsequent lines in the file with "Loading Linux" show the other kernels available to the system.

To get the latest kernel to load, you may need to only to have GRUB_DEFAULT=0 set, and run: update-grub. Otherwise, there may be another problem.

 

[KGIII]

You can also try holding the shift key (after POST) to access the GRUB menu.