If you wish to upgrade to a newer kernel, you can patch your
current kernel instead of downloading an entire new kernel. By
patching your existing kernel, you retain your settings from
previous kernel compilations. Patching the kernel is a good
choice if you wish to upgrade from your current patch level to
the next consecutive patch level. For example, patching kernel
2.2.5 to 2.2.6 involves applying one patch. However, if you wish
to upgrade the 2.2.5 kernel to 2.2.14, then a patch for each
patch level must be applied sequentially. In this case, it may
be better to download the entire 2.2.14 kernel. Also, you may
not have installed the kernel source code when installing Linux.
If this is the case, it will probably be easier to download an
entire new kernel. Go to the Finding and Installing Kernel
Source Code guide to find out how. Finding Kernel Patches Kernel
patches can be found at the following sites: www.kernelnotes.org
kernel patch archive Kernel patches will be named something
similar to patch-2.2.14.b