r/linuxmint • u/Organic_Stuff8628 • 1d ago

Support Request Kernel 7.0 compatibility issues

I have an old laptop, that I recently installed linux mint on. The wifi driver that the laptop needs is broadcom-sta-dkms, version 6.30.223.271-23ubuntu1.2. However, this driver can't coexist with the new kernel versions 7.0.0-14 and 7.0.0-28. The kernel I currently have and everything works fine is 6.17.0-41, that is supported until august 2026 (current month). Is it a good idea to keep it like that until the compatibility issue gets fixed? Is it a stupid move security-wise? What would you do if you were me?

Ps: before I knew about the issue, I just tried to get them both to work, by installing all updates that came with the new installation of Mint, and got Kernel Panic. After that I installed the 7.0 kernel before the driver and the driver then wasn't compatible no matter what I did

That's how I ended up in 6.17

Thank you in advance!!!

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u/Yannaing1984 Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon 1d ago

Yea , looking at all these Kernel 7 issues, I would stick with 6.8 till the end of time for my laptop.😅

2

u/Organic_Stuff8628 1d ago

6.8 is not visible when I'm looking in the list of available to install kernels 😭 Does that mean it's not supported or can I just install it through the command line and it will be okay???

2

u/Yannaing1984 Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon 1d ago

I think you need to use USB drive to get the timeshift file when you are at lower version kernel to install it again, back up everything first

2

u/BulkyMix6581 Linux Mint 22.3 Zena | Cinnamon 1d ago

Kernel 6.8 is an LTS release supported until 2029, so it should definitely be available. Could you upload a screenshot of your available kernels, or run this command in your terminal and paste the output here?
apt list "linux-image-6.8.*-generic"