What are the differences of the RHEL 6 kernel and the latest kernel.org one? I know RHEL is based on 2.6.32 with some features backported from newer kernels and that it also has other features that are not yet part of the latest vanilla kernel. Is there any comparison of the features of both kernels so I can tell how advanced is the RHEL kernel 6 vs. latest vanilla and vice versa?. It don't have to be the latest kernel at all, but the more recent the vanilla version, the better.
What I want to know is:
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What features I lose/win if I change the RHEL kernel for the latest kernel.org’s one?
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What features are less matured/developed in the latest vanilla kernel than in RHEL’s (and vice versa)? (I guess KVM virtualization is one of them, but I'm not so sure.)
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What things (libraries / programs / etc) don’t interact as well with the latest vanilla kernel than with the RHEL’s one?
In a related note: Is there ANY way to be as up to date (kernelwise) as possible (using RHEL 6) without loosing too much in the process? (Any way except doing the patching myself, I don’t have the necessary expertise) Any repo I don’t know of? Any alternative?
Update: The srpm doesn't include patches (see comments), so that way is not possible.
Clarification: I'm interested in how "old" the RHEL kernel gets as time goes by, and to know when the latest upstream kernel includes all the improvements included in the RHEL version.
Best Answer
The most explicit way to see exactly what the differences between the RHEL kernel and the vanilla kernel are is to extract the contents of the
kernelSRPM and examine the resulting patches.