36.1. Overview of Kernel Packages
Red Hat Enterprise Linux contains the following kernel packages (some may not apply to your architecture):
kernel — Contains the kernel and the following key features:
Uniprocessor support for x86 and Athlon systems (can be run on a multi-processor system, but only one processor is utilized)
Multi-processor support for all other architectures
For x86 systems, only the first 4 GB of RAM is used; use the kernel-hugemem package for x86 systems with over 4 GB of RAM
kernel-devel — Contains the kernel headers and makefiles sufficient to build modules against the kernel package.
kernel-hugemem — (only for i686 systems) In addition to the options enabled for the kernel package, the key configuration options are as follows:
Support for more than 4 GB of RAM (up to 64 GB for x86)
kernel-hugemem is required for memory configurations higher than 16 GB.
PAE (Physical Address Extension) or 3 level paging on x86 processors that support PAE
Support for multiple processors
4GB/4GB split — 4GB of virtual address space for the kernel and almost 4GB for each user process on x86 systems
kernel-hugemem-devel — Contains the kernel headers and makefiles sufficient to build modules against the kernel-hugemem package.
kernel-smp — Contains the kernel for multi-processor systems. The following are the key features:
Multi-processor support
Support for more than 4 GB of RAM (up to 16 GB for x86)
PAE (Physical Address Extension) or 3 level paging on x86 processors that support PAE
kernel-smp-devel — Contains the kernel headers and makefiles sufficient to build modules against the kernel-smp package.
kernel-utils — Contains utilities that can be used to control the kernel or system hardware.
kernel-doc — Contains documentation files from the kernel source. Various portions of the Linux kernel and the device drivers shipped with it are documented in these files. Installation of this package provides a reference to the options that can be passed to Linux kernel modules at load time.
By default, these files are placed in the /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc- directory.
<version>/
The kernel-source package has been removed and replaced with an RPM that can only be retrieved from Red Hat Network. This *.src.rpm must then be rebuilt locally using the rpmbuild command. Refer to the latest distribution Release Notes, including all updates, at https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ for more information on obtaining and installing the kernel source package.