Kernel version with hex id at end

[godjohnson]

Hello,
I am running on a gateworks GW7200 board SOC which runs Ubuntu 20.04. According to uname -r my kernel version is 5.15.15-g141f17ec4d38.
I dont understand what this means, and I dont know which of the millions of packages and files online to use when trying to upgrade. I have also tried to do a dist-upgrade to no luck.

I need to compile some drivers against the kernel headers but am told they are incomplete or not present. I dont know which kernel headers to download or how to install them.

I have also tried compiling a new kernel, but I get an error about kernel/kheaders_data.tar.xz missing. I dont know where to get these, or which version they would correspond to.

Under normal circumstances I think you can use uname -r and query the package manager to find relevant packages to upgrade and install these things, but the hex at the end of my kernel version is definitely throwing me off.

Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

 

[dos2unix]

It would be interesting to know what the grub menu shows this kernel as.
Also what directories do you have under /usr/src/kernels ?

 

[osprey]

godjohnson wrote:

I need to compile some drivers against the kernel headers but am told they are incomplete or not present. I dont know which kernel headers to download or how to install them.

Usually one installs the packages: linux-image-amd64, and linux-headers-amd64, which are so-called "metapackages" which pull in the compatible kernel and headers which become usable for compiling modules. The package: build-essential, pulls in the compiler and the make package that are needed. With these packages, when you upgrade, apt takes care of getting the latest. If there's anything else that you need, apt will probably let you know when you start compiling the modules.

 

[JasKinasis]

The g at the very start of that final part of the version information is most likely g for "git".

And the rest of that string probably relates to the most recent commit/change-list in the git tree.

Did you clone the kernel source from GitHub? Or did you download the source/headers via your systems package manager?

The others have covered what you should do. I just thought I’d clarify the "hex ID"!