Hi does anyone know where I can get the sources and all of the latest patches for the most recent version of Ubuntu?

I am currently stuck with 2.6.17 - but this does not fully/properly support DMA on my laptop serial ATA DVD-R drive.

Unfortunately no one on the Ubuntu forums seems to have much information on compiling kernels, let alone where to obtain sources.

To be clear I am not asking *how* to compile a kernel - just where to get all of sources and patches that are normally included in Ubuntu kernel releases. (I am particularly interested in any patches that will allow me to patch the Intel ipw3945 wireless driver into the kernel).

Any input would be appreciated.

Typically in Debian the patches and source are in a deb repository (I would guess for Ubuntu in either the universe or multiverse src repositories). Last time I messed with a patch I think it was called kernel-patch-2.4.27 or the like. Try apt-cache search patch and see if you see anything like "linux-patch-2.6" (debian renamed kernel packages linux-image and linux-source instead of kernel-image and kernel-source)

Even though the patch said 2.4.27, it worked fine on the 2.4.31 kernel I compiled. Alternatively, I think you can use apt-file to list the contents of a package and see if it shows you all the patches applied.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

My experiences of compiling a kernel under Ubuntu has been a miss for some reason. Never had this problem using CentOS and SUSE. I get my "vanilla" kernels from http://kernel.org.

Try this:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=56835