Is it possible to install a more up-to-date kernel in Freya?

Question

I would like to install a more recent kernel, as of now I have linux-image-3.16, and I would like to upgrade to 3.19 to achieve better compatibility (here's to hoping my GPU/motherboard fans will work as expected). However, when instaling linux-headers and linux-image 3.19, after rebooting I get a blank screen at the end of the boot sequence, when I was supposed to reach the login screen. The system completely hangs, and I can't reach the text consoles.

Is this doable? I'd love to be able to keep a more recent kernel, without having to ditch Freya because my fans don't work. On Luna this was almost effortless and had no issues doing it.

Thanks!

EDIT: Further info: Freya running on Lenovo y510p, Core i7, 16GB RAM, SSD and Nvidia SLI with Nvidia privative driver.

Answer 1

System Recovery

If you are now unable to boot, press (or tap) Shift while booting (right after BIOS post screen) to show the GRUB menu. You can choose an older kernel to boot into from the recovery options menu item.

Install 3.19 Kernel

sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-vivid

The above command will install the backported 3.19 kernel from the LTS Enablement Stack. You may have more luck with that one. It installed flawlessly for me in any case. See this answer for instructions for installing other kernel versions.

Troubleshooting

Alternatively you could boot to a recovery mode console (from GRUB) and examine your logs for clues as to why it is stalling on boot. Especially the following...

less /var/log/kern.log (Shows Kernel messages)

less /var/log/Xorg.0.log (X server logs)

less /var/log/syslog (Overarching system log)