For all Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, CentOS, and Fedora, a kernel is vital. It is by default installed for most Linux versions when the OS is installed, hence we generally don't have to compile the kernel. Even when there is a critical update to be installed in the kernel, it can be done using apt-get
or yum
on the Linux system.
However, there might be few situations where we have to compile the kernel from a source ourselves. A few of these situations are as follows:
Enabling experimental features in the kernel
Enabling new hardware support
Debugging the kernel
Exploring the kernel source code