Hi, im running a dedicated server 64bit Athlon 3200+ Cent OS Kernel version 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL Machine Type i686 How do i go about upgrading the Kernal to the latest version, ive never done this before and i dont want to pay for someone else, so can someone please give me a few failesafe steps to follow thank you Jamie McCoy

It's pretty easy actually. Just download the latest rpm of the kernel and install it. When you're done, reboot the machine so that it can boot into the new kernel. That's all there is to it.

You may find simply downloading and installing an RPM to upgrade a server from kernel 2.4.x to 2.6.x is not the best option. CentOS uses yum so you could try that, better still download the source from www.kernel.org and compile it yourself. This way you can have more than one kernel installed allowing you to test out a newer version first before making it the default. Installation instructions are included with the source. Why is it that you need to upgrade your kernel? You may find that just recompiling your current one is a better choice, the source of which is usually in /usr/src/linux.

my friend had a server, and the load was really high, so he paid these guys $20 to fix, an they upgraded the kernal to the latest version and ever since the server has been great Jamie McCoy

Have you tried recompiling and optimising your current kernel? You may find it easier to upgrade to the latest 2.4.x kernel (currently 2.4.31) rather than a 2.6.x one.