Chapter 3. Retrieving the Kernel Source

When you're building your own kernel, you want the latest stable release. Many distributions provide their own packages of kernel sources, but these are rarely the most cutting-edge, recent versions. The distribution packages have the advantage of being built to be compatible with the compiler and other tools provided by the distribution (Chapter 2 explains the importance of their being compatible) but they may not end up providing the functionality or performance you want. If you can create your own environment with the latest kernel, compiler, and other tools, you will be able to build exactly what you want. This chapter focuses on determining which kernel sources to download, and how to obtain them.