[CentOS] Run a more recent kernel than 2.6.18 on CentOS?

[Florin Andrei]

Niki Kovacs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Usually I'm not one to complain about "old" version of the CentOS kernel 
> and/or software, since I appreciate CentOS' stability. So this might be 
> the exception that confirms the rule.

It's not the end of the world. I've a server with a whole bunch of 
various services, running CentOS 5.2 x86_64 and a custom kernel, because 
the network card is not supported by the original kernel. It's rock solid.

> What i naively plan to do: get a kernel SRPM from Fedora 9, try to build 
> from there, and see where it leads.

Nah.
Get the vanilla kernel tarball.
Apply the mkspec patch. (*)
Get the .config file from the CentOS kernel (see /boot).
Use that config file to do a "make oldconfig" in the vanilla kernel 
source tree. This will import most settings from the original CentOS kernel.
Now do a "make menuconfig" and peruse the config items. Make sure it's 
not missing important stuff.
Now do "make rpm".
Voila, you've got a kernel rpm that's pretty similar to CentOS, only newer.

(*) - without the mkspec patch, the rpm will be pretty generic. The 
CentOS/Redhat kernel rpm has a few more features that you need. This 
patch adds them. See the file attached to this message.

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: mkspec.patch
URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20080917/1f3edafd/attachment.ksh>