[CentOS] Re: Putting CentOS 5.2 kernel on CentOS 4.x

[Bart Schaefer]

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 5:39 PM, Fong Vang <sudoyang at gmail.com> wrote:
> So you're saying that the CentOS 4.x system is married with the 2.6.9
> kernel?  Maybe the packaging of the kernel RPM is different between 4.x and
> 5.x, but why would a 5.x kernel not work on a 4.x system, especially
> considering you can always download the latest kernel from the kernel source
> tree and run that so this doesn't sound right.

If system call interfaces have changed, you *can't* always download
and run the latest kernel from the kernel source tree.  Sometimes
programs that make system calls have to be recompiled along with the
kernel.  I haven't paid attention to whether there was any such change
introduced frm 2.6.9 to 2.6.18; I'd sort of expect a bigger change in
the version number if so.

Aside from the binary compatibility issue. though, occasionally things
like the layout of /proc and /dev change in incompatible ways.  The
introduction of udev between CentOS 3 and 4 makes it seriously
problematic to run a CentOS 4 or 5 kernel on a CentOS 3 system, for
example. You may have to install more than just the kernel.