>Do Linux server admins actually... change anything related to the Linux kernel? Yes. The Linux admins where I work have looked at TCP buffer settings, memory

>Do Linux server admins actually... change anything related to the Linux kernel? Yes. The Linux admins where I work have looked at TCP buffer settings, memory overcommit settings, and some other kernel level configurations. Last week, I was trying to determine for a user if the PF_SWAPOFF flag was being set on their process, and if memory was being harvested by the Out Of Memory Killer. Linux is not really this hard to configure. What I'm describing is hyper-optimization and OS level troubleshooting. Most of my developer friends have a passing familiarity with Linux administration if they host their own web servers. One of them even runs Gentoo on some of his VPS's. However, once he gets past the level of "blog post to tell you how to fix this" he generally calls me. He gets paid to develop applications, not fiddle around with the VPS.