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Installing Linux Kernel From Debian Backports

Technical
Author
Kuan-Yi Li
Table of Contents

Debian buster-backports started to serve kernel 5.6+ around mid June, 2020. By installing Linux kernel from the suite, we’ll have in-tree WireGuard kernel module and some more up-to-date drivers on Debian Buster, all officially signed.

Setup Debian Backports Suite
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Create file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list with following content.

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster-backports main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster-backports main contrib non-free

Install (amd64) Linux Kernel From Backports
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The package of interest is linux-image-amd64, which provides wireguard-modules.

sudo apt update
sudo apt -t buster-backports install linux-image-amd64

Install WireGuard
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Package wireguard depends on wireguard-modules or wireguard-dkms. As the system now have wireguard-modules, we don’t have to compile WireGuard kernel module locally with DKMS, or fiddling with kernel module signing (to have Secure Boot enabled) anymore.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install wireguard

References
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