3 ms·

Is there anyway you can use a different kernel? The kernel is really easily replaceable in other distros. I don't know much about RHEL.

pnutjam 6y ago
No, you can't do that in RHEL. It would invalidate support.
- sam_lowry_ 6y ago
  O'rly?
- bluedays 6y ago
  Seems sad that the modularity of Linux is not allowed due to issues with support. That, in my opinion, is the best part of Linux - which is finding solutions to problems that exists outside of the scope of what is designed by the vendors.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    A big part of RHEL IS their kernel. They spend a lot of time to optimize/stabilize their releases. Why would they support any other kernel?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    It's a tradeoff. There's nothing to stop you from taking a RHEL system and installing the very latest kernel, and there's a good chance that the resulting system would work fine. However, RH the company only supports their own versions, which seems reasonable. Also, and not unrelated, I believe RHEL kernels hold a stable ABI to the point that you can use vendor-provided (out-of-tree) drivers and not have them break on every release, which is something that normal kernels intentionally don't support. So you can use RHEL like any other Linux system, but you lose some of the advantages that made RHEL useful in the first place.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    Nothing stops people from using whatever distro they like, instead of RHEL. If they are using RHEL, presuming they’re rational actors, it’s because the RHEL model works for their use case.
  - jcrawfordor 6y ago
    You're free to do whatever you want with your Linux distribution, but if you're not using the thing that the vendor supports, they're not going to support it. There's not really any way around it. Unfortunately the kernel has significant and widespread implications on the system, so it's very hard to figure out how to support a system that is running a kernel version you haven't validated. As a RH customer, the way I handle this kind of thing is usually by replicating the problem on a "stock" system and working with RH support on fixing it on that system --- this is often an important step anyway since, for my own purposes, I need to figure out whether or not I introduced the problem by something I did.
juangacovas 6y ago
I update some CentOS servers with ML kernel from ElRepo.org, and no problems for four years, but my stack could be minimalist (webservers) and do just fine
curt15 6y ago
Facebook runs CentOS with mainline kernels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_Nd3crBuA&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_Nd3crBuA&feature=youtu.be

pnutjam 6y ago

No, you can't do that in RHEL. It would invalidate support.

sam_lowry_ 6y ago
O'rly?
bluedays 6y ago
Seems sad that the modularity of Linux is not allowed due to issues with support. That, in my opinion, is the best part of Linux - which is finding solutions to problems that exists outside of the scope of what is designed by the vendors.
- azinman2 6y ago
  A big part of RHEL IS their kernel. They spend a lot of time to optimize/stabilize their releases. Why would they support any other kernel?
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  It's a tradeoff. There's nothing to stop you from taking a RHEL system and installing the very latest kernel, and there's a good chance that the resulting system would work fine. However, RH the company only supports their own versions, which seems reasonable. Also, and not unrelated, I believe RHEL kernels hold a stable ABI to the point that you can use vendor-provided (out-of-tree) drivers and not have them break on every release, which is something that normal kernels intentionally don't support. So you can use RHEL like any other Linux system, but you lose some of the advantages that made RHEL useful in the first place.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  Nothing stops people from using whatever distro they like, instead of RHEL. If they are using RHEL, presuming they’re rational actors, it’s because the RHEL model works for their use case.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  You're free to do whatever you want with your Linux distribution, but if you're not using the thing that the vendor supports, they're not going to support it. There's not really any way around it. Unfortunately the kernel has significant and widespread implications on the system, so it's very hard to figure out how to support a system that is running a kernel version you haven't validated. As a RH customer, the way I handle this kind of thing is usually by replicating the problem on a "stock" system and working with RH support on fixing it on that system --- this is often an important step anyway since, for my own purposes, I need to figure out whether or not I introduced the problem by something I did.

juangacovas 6y ago

I update some CentOS servers with ML kernel from ElRepo.org, and no problems for four years, but my stack could be minimalist (webservers) and do just fine

curt15 6y ago

Facebook runs CentOS with mainline kernels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_Nd3crBuA&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_Nd3crBuA&feature=youtu.be