Update to different Mainline kernels in Zorin OS 17 w/ZFS

General Help
1

Pardon my noobishness....

I'm getting visual glitches in Zorin OS 17 with both my AMD RX 5500 and RX560 when I minimize or maximize a window from the dock.

That led me into trying to update the kernel to see if that could fix it. I'm comfortable screwing with the system and just trying to learn.

I followed a suggestion from a mod here about upgrading the kernel: https://9to5linux.com/you-can-now-install-linux-kernel-6-6-on-ubuntu-heres-how

I found out very quickly that ZFS pools cannot load when using anything other than the HWE kernels, hence I can't boot and have to do the hold shift thing to choose the older kernel in order to boot again.

In my searching, it seems that some people were mentioning upgrading the ZFS version to support later kernels, but that doesn't seem to be so simple in Zorin...

So, understanding that a kernel update may not solve my graphical glitches, that I don't mind if I bork my OS, and that I'd like to experiment with later kernel versions, can someone give me a step by step of how I can switch to a newer kernel without borking ZFS and not being able to boot?

Thank you

2

Welcome to the Forum!

So, when I understand You right, You have used the Ubuntu Mainline Tool (I mean the graphical Interface) to install a newer Kernel because of Problems with Your Graphics Cards. Or did You made that with the Terminal and the Installation didn't worked?

3

Yes that's correct. I figured maybe an updated kernel could perhaps fix some things and help with the glitchiness, and yes, I used the mainline tool to do so.

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4

openZFS is not part of the linux kernel and it is updated independently. For a very, very recent kernel you may not have zfs available for your kernel. You have to check this first. Zorin uses zfs 2.1.5 and according to https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/releases kernel from 3.10 to 6.7 are supported. So don't try any kernel from 6.8 unless you can upgrade ZFS to a newer version or zfs confirm it has a driver for 6.8.

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