Ksplice allows system administrators to apply security patches to the Linux kernel without having to reboot. Ksplice takes as input a source code change in unified diff format and the kernel source code to be patched, and it applies the patch to the corre
this explains why you always need to build the latest kernel when you buy a new dell,
except if you do redhat or novell, and why sometimes the latest knoppix just works
when all the other distos fail you -- knoppix usually has the latest kernel