Linux Kernel Version

Distro Discussion & Help
1

Good Evening,

I have had the joy of installing my medium sized FreePBX install. One if the challenges we faced was installing a second network card. This opened a very large can of worms. Basically the NIC keeped swapping orders and just in general causing all kinds of grief (even when we tried to use the MAC of the NIC to try and lock the Eth0 or Eth1.

What we ended up doing is bringing in a highly experienced Linux professional. He logged into the server and issued a uname -a to get the Linux version. He was very surprised to see for a new distro how old the Linux kernel was that we were using.

He also made comment that (2.6.18) which is the kernel version we are using has problems with multiple NIC’s and especially if they are of the GB type.

I have been doing some of my own research and I can see from the archives that 2.6.18 was released in 2006. The current stable version seems to be 2.6.39.

My question is can we safely update the Kernel without breaking FreePBX?

2

Well that is the kernel that Centos 5.5 comes with. The Distro is built at this time on Centos 5.5. 5.6 Came out 2 months ago but had nothing but problems with DADHI so we stayed on Centos 5.5

Centos 6.0 is now out be as everyone knows has issues and will take a few months before I would even consider moving a PBX onto it.

You can do whatever you want to the kernel. Upgrade or downgrade it but it will not longer be a real FreePXB distro and things like DAHDI and WANPIPE will not work since they are built against the kernel.

3

Just as a update Centos 6.0 which is less than 2 weeks old has the 2.6.32 kernel. remember the latest greatest kernels are not proven to be stable and these are PBX’s but the great thing about OpenSource is you can use a different product if you dont like what we offer.

4

Na, I’m happy to wait.

It was more a question than a request. Thanks for your help.