“The Linux 2.4 kernel hasn’t been officially released yet and
won’t until later this year or even early next year, but if you’re
a user with experience compiling and installing kernels, you can
get in on the testing action and help to find bugs. The latest 2.2
kernels, ripe with backports from the new 2.4 series, are also in
continued testing as we speak.”
“Warning
Development kernels can be unstable, and compiling and
installing your own kernel isn’t a task for absolute Linux novices.
Before working with the 2.4 kernel series, be sure to create and
maintain backups of your data. If you’ve never compiled and
installed a kernel before, a test kernel is probably not the best
place for you to begin.”
“The Linux kernel archive can be found at
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/. A number of mirrors are
also available; to connect to a mirror, insert a two-letter country
code after “ftp” in the hostname. … Once you’ve connected to the
kernel archive, you’ll find that there are a number of important
directories for those interested in testing the latest 2.4 or 2.2
kernel sources. They are summarized in this table…”