Debain kernel source or Linux kernel source?
 

Hi,

I was trying to get a certain piece of hardware to get working on my debain system which I was not able to using the default 2.6.8-2-386 kernel from debain sarge. Then I found out that the latest release was 2.6.13(at that time) on kernel.org so I downloaded the source,configured it and compiled it and my piece of hardware worked fine. Then later on I found that even debian's kernel source 2.6.13 was available in the experimental repository and I even tried that too and my hardware was again working fine just as with the original kernel source from kernel.org

So now the question is what kernel source should I keep using? The Original one from kernel.org(2.6.13) or from the debian experimental repository(2.6.13)....which one is better from stability point of view.

Thanks

I personally believe that you should be using the kernel from Debian. The difference between the two is the Debian kernel is the stock kernel with Debian patches installed in them. The patches allow the kernel to work in Debian smoother than a stock kernel. Anyone else?

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The Debian kernel does have patches to the original kernel source. The most significant was (and still is I think) the cramfs patch. If you use an initrd, the default Debian initrd uses the cramfs filesystem. If you don't have the proper patch for it, the kernel may fail to boot. However, you can change the initrd manually or manually configure your kernel so that you do not need the initrd. My guess is that if you have both the original kernel and debian patched kernel, either one will work.

hmm. that was good to know. you mentioned that the debain kernel has cramfs patches. But when I used the original kernel source I did not had any problems? I just compiled the kernel the Debian way(make-kpkg) and it was able to boot. Does it mean that the new kernels on kernel.org have those patches installed. I am asking out of curiosity.:study:

No. The kernels from kernel.org are distribution independent. The kernels from Debian.org have the Debian patches, and the other distributions maintain patched kernels on their respective Web sites.

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