[ILUG-BOM] Kernel Version and Driver installations

[Anand Iyer]

I was tying to install Linux on a real time system (via an external 
CD-ROM drive with DOS device driver only. So copy files to Hard disk 
using DOS and then install using the boot diskette.
Linux 7.0 official RH pack was loaded.
When we loaded the systems device drivers used for real time data 
acquisition using, we found tat the modules did not get installed due to 
incorrect kernel version.
We had 2.2.16-22 and 2.2.12-18 was required.
We got another version of driver for 2.4.2,
I loaded the kernel from PCQ (july-Aug 2001) but the PCQ kernel was 
2.4.2-2 and even this did not work.
The message that I got was that the driver required kernel 2.4.2 while 
we had 2.4.2-2 installed.

Why is this so?
When drivers are made for one kernel version then why should it not work 
with a higher kernel version.

Anand