CentOS

I've downloaded Centos a few times in the past. Now I download Centos 7 which says 1018 and when I install it I end up with version 957. I also cannot update to something current. I have tried downloading from a couple of mirrors and always end up with the same thing. How do I get a current version?

That is the current version. For CentOS 7.6 the current kernel is kernel-3.10.0-957.27.2.el7 and for the upcoming 7.7 that is now in the CR repo, the kernel will be kernel-3.10.0-1062.el7.x86_64.

Please do not be misled by the apparent old version number. Redhat continually backport changes from more recent kernels to their own so large portions of the CentOS/RHEL 3.10 kernel are nothing like the vanilla 3.10 kernel from kernel.org.

Please see https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/backporting/ for information on backporting of security fixes and features in CentOS and RHEL. Additionally https://access.redhat.com/solutions/2074 may also be of use.

I was confused by your "1018". Perhaps you meant 1810, as in CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1810.iso? The 1810 in the filename does not signify the kernel version, it signifies the year and month the respective RHEL version was released (year 2018 month 10).