I have Fedora Core 4 with 2.6 kernel.. need to have also 2.4 kernal
 

Hi Guys,
I have Fedora Core 4. and it is having the 2.6 kernel.
I have reading linux device driver 2nd edition , I need to write some code from it.
This book is using kernel 2.4, I wanna have 2.4 kernel also in my system, so that I can choose 2.4 at the boot time also.
Can I can find out the source from the kernel.org.
but what should I do with it next, I have no idea about it.
Can you guys help me ??
waiting for reply ...
Thanks
reverser
Fedora Core 4

You may have problems with that on Fedora core-4

Best is to compile from source and/or use an older stable Debian or Slackware

Why not use virtualization instead? Less bothersome. BTW FC4 is way past mouldy. It's dead in a way the definition of dead doesn't quite cater for. If this box is connected to the 'net please consider F10 or a recent release of another distribution.

You pretty much have three choices if you want to run both a 2.4 and 2.6 kernel on one system.

1. Run a different distro in a VM.

2. Dual boot to a different distro.

3. Switch to a non package based distro (not sure if even they can handle this).

The reason you cannot us a 2.4 and a 2.6 kernel on most systems is that the system itself is tied in with too many things in the kernel. There are tons of things that are handled dramatically different in a 2.4 kernel than they are handled in a 2.6 kernel. How can all the tools and apps in the system deal with these differences? (they can't).

if you REALLY need the kernel 2.4 with the security hole you can sail a aircraft carrier through)
then you will need to build it from a VERY old source ( most likely WILL NOT WORK )
or duel boot into some thing from 1998 like rh9 or rh8

The 2.4 kernel is still maintained, but FC4 is not (even if a 2.4 kernel would run on it). I THINK that some of the slackware variants still run the 2.4 kernel (no sure).

Edit: The latest 2.4 kernel I can find was from December of 2008: http://www.kernel.org/

You certainly can compile 2.4 kernels for Fedora 4. If the only reason for having a 2.4 kernel is caused by the fact the your study book goes for 2.4, then you can just as well consider compiling the code for a 2.6 kernel and finding out or Googling for implementation differences - it's a study/research project anyway.

But compiling 2.4 kernels is also a good subject to study. Those who want to program kernel devices should be able to compile kernels first, I guess.

Debian