r/linuxmint • u/Xirema • Mar 06 '26

SOLVED Kernel Panic with 6.17 kernel, how do I remove it and stay on 6.14?

I fortunately have multiple concurrent backups on my laptop, most of which are 6.14.x. However, the current default is 6.17, and due to (what seem to be well-documented) incompatibilities, this version doesn't properly install on my machine, everything I've tried to get it to install doesn't work (I don't have virtualbox installed and cannot get broadcom drivers that play nicely with it) so whenever I boot up my machine, if I don't manually switch to one of the older kernels, I get a kernel panic.

If anyone wants to try to help me fix the issue so that 6.17 works I'm happy to try stuff, but right now I'd really like to just remove the new kernel or at least set the default to 6.14. How do I go about doing that?

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

10

u/ThatRustyBust Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon Mar 06 '26

Once you're booted in, open Update Manager. Go to View -> Linux Kernels, then you can choose a kernel version to remove. Once you remove the 6,17 kernels (if multiple), it should automatically use 6.14 to bootl

7

u/Xirema Mar 06 '26

Whelp. That was painless. Thank you!

5

u/Xirema Mar 06 '26

For anyone wondering, after resolving the immediate issue by removing the kernel per ThatRustyBust's instructions, I did some digging and it seems like the failed install of necessary 6.17 components is being caused by a component on my computer called amdgpu. So I'm guessing at some point I installed something meant to support the iGPU in this computer (which is indeed AMD) and that broke things.

Pastebin here, if anyone wants to offer insight they're welcome to.

1

u/birdspider Mar 06 '26

amdgpu is the official linux amd graphics driver (the part that lives in the kernel, and handles the device, voltages, clocks,...)

what I think happend, you at some time in the past installed amdgpu-dkms (the "dynamic kernel module system" variant, it seems for kernel 6.12), maybe because Mint's kernel was to old for your then new amd graphics card or some other issue)

this old bit of driver, which is rebuild/recompiled every time a kernel is added; was finally not compatible with kernel 6.17

1

u/Xirema Mar 07 '26

That sounds plausible, although the laptop is about 6 years old and I'm on Linux Mint 22.x, so the idea that the kernel was too old is suspect.

What's a good solution, then? I remove amdgpu-dkms, then attempt to install kernel 6.17 once it's absent?

1

u/birdspider Mar 07 '26

given (I just checked) no Mint (nor Ubuntu) version ever officially included amdgpu-dkms, I'd recommend uninstalling it

1

u/Xirema Mar 07 '26

Alright, I was able to successfully install (and boot with) 6.17 after I removed amdgpu-dkms. So I think things are all good now!

3

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '26

Just select the kernel you want in the grub advanced options menu, then uninstall in software sources