Fedora Core may include additional patches to the kernel for improvements, bug fixes, or additional features. For this reason, the Fedora Core kernel may not be line-for-line equivalent to the so-called vanilla kernel from the kernel.org web site:

http://www.kernel.org/

To obtain a list of these patches, download the source RPM package and run the following command against it:

rpm -qpl kernel-<version>.src.rpm

To retrieve a log of changes to the package, run the following command:

rpm -q --changelog kernel-<version>

If you need a user friendly version of the changelog, refer to http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges. A short and full diff of the kernel is available from http://kernel.org/git. The Fedora version kernel is based on the Linus tree.

Customizations made for the Fedora version are available from http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com .

Fedora Core 6 includes the following kernel builds:

You may install kernel headers for all kernel flavors at the same time. The files are installed in the /usr/src/kernels/<version>-[xen|kdump]-<arch>/ tree. Use the following command:

su -c 'yum install kernel-{PAE,xen,kdump}-devel'

Select one or more of these flavors, separated by commas and no spaces, as appropriate. Enter the root password when prompted.

	Default Kernel Provides SMP
	There is no separate SMP kernel available for Fedora Core 6 on i386, x86_64 and ppc64. Multiprocessor support is provided by the native kernel.

	PowerPC Kernel Support
	There is no support for Xen or kdump for the PowerPC architecture in Fedora Core 6 test3. 32-bit PowerPC does still have a separate SMP kernel.

Refer to http://kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/lkml/reporting-bugs.html for information on reporting bugs in the Linux kernel. You may also use http://bugzilla.redhat.com for reporting bugs that are specific to Fedora.

Many of the tutorials, examples, and textbooks about Linux kernel development assume the kernel sources are installed under the /usr/src/linux/ directory. If you make a symbolic link, as shown below, you should be able to use those learning materials with the Fedora Core packages. Install the appropriate kernel sources, as shown earlier, and then run the following command:

su -c 'ln -s /usr/src/kernels/<version>.<release>-<arch> /usr/src/linux'

Enter the root password when prompted.

Fedora Core 6 does not include the kernel-source package provided by older versions since only the kernel-devel package is required now to build external modules. Configured sources are available, as described in this kernel flavors section.

	Instructions Refer to Current Kernel
	To simplify the following directions, we have assumed that you want to configure the kernel sources to match your currently-running kernel. In the steps below, the expression <version> refers to the kernel version shown by the command: uname -r.

Users who require access to Fedora Core original kernel sources can find them in the kernel .src.rpm package. To create an exploded source tree from this file, perform the following steps:

	Do Not Build Packages as Super-user (root)
	Building packages as the superuser is inherently dangerous and is not required, even for the kernel. These instructions allow you to install the kernel source as a normal user. Many general information sites refer to /usr/src/linux in their kernel instructions. If you use these instructions, simply substitute ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-<version>/linux-<version>.<arch>."]]

	Building Kernel Binary RPMs
	Normally, kernels for Fedora are built using the rpmbuild utility and a specfile. Your results may vary if you use the kernel's built-in make rpm target.

An exploded source tree is not required to build a kernel module, such as your own device driver, against the currently in-use kernel. Only the kernel-devel package is required to build external modules. If you did not select it during installation, use Pirut to install it, going to Applications → Add/Remove Software or use yum to install it. Run the following command to install the kernel-devel package using yum.

su -c 'yum install kernel-devel' 

For example, to build the foo.ko module, create the following Makefile in the directory containing the foo.c file:

obj-m := foo.o 

KDIR  := /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
PWD   := $(shell pwd)

default:
    $(MAKE) -C $(KDIR) M=$(PWD) modules

Issue the make command to build the foo.ko module.