You can get away in most of the cases just by installing the kernel headers, but if you need to modify kernel parameters, then you'll have to install a custom kernel.

To install the kernel headers, first you need to find out what kernel you are using. To find that out do the following:

In my case, when I perform that command I get: 2.6.22-1-41.fc7

Now depending on which system you're running, you'll have to append .x86_64 or .i686 or whichever system you're using to the end of that number.

As we have been using a x86_64 distribution we use the following command to download the kernel headers:

There are many prebuilt packages at the repositories for the version of the kernel of the Fedora distribution.

With this procedure, we can build our own kernel in a way that will look the same as the Fedora distribution so we can use those prebuilt modules.

Download the latest kernel for your system, as August 2007, to get it:

Once the file is downloaded:

If you get the error: sparse >= 0.3 is needed by kernel-2.6.22.1-41.fc7.i686, just install sparce:

Now go to the directory /usr/src and delete any symbolic link pointing to another kernel:

Now, create a new symbolic link:

Go to /usr/src/linux, edit the Makefile, look for the line EXTRAVERSION and set it to .1-41.fc7, at the end, the line should look like:

Now, perform the following commands to copy the original configuration of your Fedora installation:

If you want to perform changes in the configuration of the kernel, do a:

Once you're happy with your kernel, compile it, compile the modules and install it: