[rhn-users] how to compile the kernel

[Les Bell]

"White, Shane" <Shane.White at health.wa.gov.au> wrote:

>>
I'm interested in this too.  Is it even possible to patch/recompile an
RHEL kernel?
<<

Yes, it's possible - but patches written for the kernel.org kernel may not
apply to the RH kernel. For example, the 2.4.20 kernel in RH 9 has the
POSIX thread library - kernel.org doesn't have that until 2.6. At times,
the RH kernel can look quite different to the stock kernel. It might be
simpler in the end just to replace the old 2.4.9 RH-supplied kernel with
the kernel.org 2.4.24 or whatever - this would probably fix a few other
things as well, but of course, you would no longer have gen-u-wine RH AS
2.1 at the end of the process.

The best way to apply a patch, if it's possible, would be to rebuild the
kernel RPM - this makes it easier to deploy. In the past, out of sheer
cussedness, I've installed RH 8 onto a 486/33, even though the lowest
kernel supplied by RH is Pentium-specific. I had to rebuild the kernel RPM,
targetted to i486, and then do a network install, but it worked.

Best,

--- Les Bell, RHCE, CISSP
[http://www.lesbell.com.au]