Why is ubuntu booting into an old kernel by default?

[kansasnoob]

I'm reasonably certain that this was a screw-up. Besides the link I included with my message to ubuntu-release this link reaffirms that:

https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cyc...-release-cycle

I assume that at some point during 20.04.1 development 'linux-generic' was replaced by 'linux-generic-hwe-20.04'. In fact if this had been intentional the HWE update should also have included the HWE Xstack.

[kansasnoob]

I did notice that the 20.04 Beta ISO did not have the hwe installed according to the manifest file but instead used linux-generic which would keep you on 5.4

In deed. I checked the .iso manifests this morning and both 20.04 and 20.04.1 show linux-generic-hwe-20.04, but the Beta shows linux-generic. This was clearly a mistake based on all the support documentation I've found.

[darand]

In deed. I checked the .iso manifests this morning and both 20.04 and 20.04.1 show linux-generic-hwe-20.04, but the Beta shows linux-generic. This was clearly a mistake based on all the support documentation I've found.

I am not sure if I understand it right. The only way to stay with 5.4 kernel is to install Ubuntu 20.04 (beta)? Can I expect they (Ubuntu team) will change both Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 20.04.1 to work this way?

[jeremy31]

I think if you install 20.04 or 20.04.1 without internet, so it doesn't update, you should be able to boot into the install and remove the linux-generic-hwe-20.04 and install linux-generic before updating and you should be able to stay on the 5.4 LTS kernel

[kansasnoob]

I'm still gathering data as time allows. This appears to be limited to Ubuntu only. I didn't check all of the flavors but for Ubuntu MATE, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu have linux-generic on their 20.04.1 images. I'm going to see what happens if I do a fresh install of Ubuntu MATE, update, and then install 'ubuntu-desktop' to see what happens. Obviously I need to file a bug report because no one at ubuntu-release answered my question. And it's really not a 'linux' bug - it's a build bug. So I'm just trying to figure out how best to file a bug report. I think it falls into the 'ubuntu-meta' category but you can't file an ubuntu-meta bug because it's not an installed package.

[kansasnoob]

I filed a bug report:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...a/+bug/1911614

More subscribers and marking it as effecting you too will turn up the heat. No heat - no fix.

[darand]

Thanks for answers. I am afraid this is disaster for newcomers dependent on nvidia-340 driver. They had fine working OS and all of the sudden after nine months, they had to become power users or worst, they gave up on Ubuntu.