I have been running a RHEL 4.x workstation successfully for a while now; including multiple version updates. Recently I needed to move up to RHEL 5 for the later version kernel to support some new applications I want to run. I had the RHEL 5.1 CDs and just got the 5.2 CDs so I've tried out both 5.x versions - they act the same.

Installing RHEL 5.1 or 5.2 w/virtualization included works fine (I'm using a 5.2 system w/virtualization right now) but installing either 5.x version w/o virtualization is a disaster every time - I get an unstable system that usually will not even boot up. I see segmentation faults and end up with a kernel panic every time.

The only possibly unusual aspect of my system hardware is an LSI20320 SCSI adapter attaching 2 SCSI HDDs in a RAID 1 config as my system storage. All system hardware is consistent between my working RHEL 4.6 install and the various RHEL 5.x installs I've tried (I swap the 2 disk HDD set between a RHEL 4.6 and RHEL 5.x system).

Anyone had a similar experience? Any ideas about what new RHEL 5 feature or function would be causing my problems w / non-virtualized 5.x that gets masked and does not cause a problem when running 5.x w / virtualization?

Yes, I could just keep running RHEL 5.2 w/ virtualization but I'm concerned about application issues with the virtualization support. I've already found that my OpenGl Nvidia video card drivers will not work when running the 5.x xen kernel w/ virtualization.

OK, since I got no response to the original question, it looks like I have to do some experimenting with customized RHEL kernels to debug my problems. Can someone please point me to a good primer/tutorial on building customized RHEL kernels? The kernel build docs I've seen so far are a bit too generic. I did a little bit of custom kernel building years ago but I need a refresher course. Thanks