How can I install 3.16 kernel on Ubuntu 14.04

Now that 14.10 has been released, there is an easier and better way to get 3.16 on Ubuntu 14.04:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-generic-lts-utopic

This package will always depend on the latest 3.16 image available. (This method may not have been ready at the time of this article.)

To install the latest kernel you can always visit kernel.ubuntu.com to see what's going on.

To install the latest 3.16 kernel all you need to do is:

cd /tmp

for 32bit:

wget \
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.16-utopic/linux-headers-3.16.0-031600-generic_3.16.0-031600.201408031935_i386.deb \
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.16-utopic/linux-headers-3.16.0-031600_3.16.0-031600.201408031935_all.deb \
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.16-utopic/linux-image-3.16.0-031600-generic_3.16.0-031600.201408031935_i386.deb

for 64bit:

wget \
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.16-utopic/linux-headers-3.16.0-031600-generic_3.16.0-031600.201408031935_amd64.deb \
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.16-utopic/linux-headers-3.16.0-031600_3.16.0-031600.201408031935_all.deb \
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.16-utopic/linux-image-3.16.0-031600-lowlatency_3.16.0-031600.201408031935_amd64.deb

then, making sure you have no other .debs in /tmp

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

then

sudo reboot

I do recommend using the linux-image-generic-lts-utopic or whatever newer made available for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Try avoid mixing release repositories, it may break things.

If linux-image-generic-lts-$(lsb_release -sc) is NOT new enough for you, try the Ubuntu Kernel mainline archive (manually download and install) http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

NOTE: the drawback of using mainline kernel is that you may not be able to compile drivers or things like VirtualBox won't work with the cutting edge kernel. Last but not least, ksplice (uptrack) won't work with mainline kernels anyway (uptrack does support newer kernel from later releases on current LTS).