Hi. i've had bad luck with compiling my own kernels before. Im having issues with the computer freezing at select times and want to upgrade the kernel to see if the problem exist. What is the least painful way to do so? Patching? It isn't anyhing yum could be used for right?

standard kernels should be able to be updated via yum or apt-get. Naturally there actually needs to be a precompiled kernel built and distributed already...

You could use Yum to do this, most distribution provide packages of some generic binary kernel. Try to upgrade "linux-kernel" or something equivalent

Why do you think it's a software problem?
can you ssh to the system after it has "frozen"?
does it respond to ctrl-alt-backspace/ctrl-alt-delete?
the magic sys-req keys are really handy here if your kernel has them enabled.
what's in the logs?
does it have similar problems under XP?
All the low level problems (ie kernel no longer responding) that i have run into have turned out to be hardware issues.
At this point I doubt a kernel upgrade is going to help, do some troubleshooting/analysis first.
Good luck....

i've been trying to troubleshoot and analyize for the past week. I haven't used ssh - familar with it but haven't used it. Can you install it on windows? The only other box in the house is windows. no response to crt-alt-del/backspace. i don't know what the sys-req keys are. i can't remember what was in the logs when it happens. don't have xp installed on this box - isnt dual boot. here is when it has froze up. i can reproduce the problem
1. ripping with grip
2. encoding a movie with tovid
3. had system on while i was at work and came home and the screensaver was froze.

checked bugzilla and didn't find any freezing that occured similar to my situations.

Sounds like an X-windows issue to me, not the kernel ... Maybe the (X..) video driver...

actually for testing, when it locks just try and ping it from another machine. Make sure your firewalls aren't blocking ICMP first and test to be sure you can ping as you'd expect.
If it pings ok when frozen then you can start pointing the finger at something in user land.
If the kernel was having problems I'd expect panic messages to console and logs.
The fact that it's crashing when you do I/O, RAM and CPU intensive work like encoding with grip and tovid leans me towards a hardware problem, probaly RAM or mobo. Have you tried memtest86? Leave it running. The only way i know to test mobo's requires surgery.
What's your spec?

what is memtest?
how can i find out my ip to ping the computer?
specs:
1.3ghz amd atholon
256 mb ram.

Your googlefu is lacking young grasshopper.
memtest86.com is what you would've found.

ifconfig will list details on your network interfaces.

inet addr: is the number im looking for in the output of ifconfig right?

OK ... way back in there you said you used 'yum' to update software. This means you have a redhat/fedora system ... or a yellowdog system for the apple power mac.

There is a setting in the /etc/yum.conf file that prevents the kernel from being upgraded ... just comment this line out.

If you don't see that line in the /etc/yum.conf file, then look for it in the multitude of files in the /etc/yum.repos.d directory

If you still cannot find it, then that's OK. We can go on and do the update by issuing this command as the root user:

Heck you might as well update all your software:

The kernel is probably NOT freezing your system ... it's most likely some application. Updating the entire system might be a good idea in your case as the update may likely install a newer version of the application that doesn't cause problems.

-- Tony

i tried memtest. I don't know if it stops on its own but i let it run for an hour and a half and there was no errors and it passed 4 times.

how can i be sure it is pinging my machine? do i just need the ip address or the netmask as well?

just the ip address.
if it pings ok, but not with the network cable unplugged then you just need a crash...

Has updateing the software made any difference?

Have you checked the logs? Sift through the files in /var/log. I'm not sure how redhat organises things but they're a great place to find clues.

Well i haven't had a problem since i updated everything doing yum update. The only thing i don't like about that is now im not certain what was causing the problem and i always like to know what was going wrong specifically if it happens again or if someone on here posted about it i could help them.