It is very clear that most of the improvements are for non-i386 users. If you need to use the improved ISA PNP, USB or faster networking core or the new sound/video/video4linux drivers it would be a good idea to go for the upgrade. However, if you don't find anything useful in the new features and do not want to tinker with your already well setup machine, you should probably stick on to your older kernel for some more time.

Still plan to upgrade your kernel?

The latest kernel available in the 2.4.x series is available from http://www.kernel.org/ . After you have downloaded the kernel, move the kernel source into the /usr/src directory. Now you need to make sure that supporting tools for the kernel are sufficiently up to date.

* Gnu C

# gcc --version

Should be at least version 2.91.66

* Gnu make

# make --version

Should be at least version 3.77

* binutils

# ld -v

Should be at least version 2.9.1.0.25

* util-linux

# fdformat --version

Should be at least version 2.10o

* modutils

# insmod -V

Should be at least version 2.4.0

* e2fsprogs

# tune2fs --version

Should be at least version 1.19

* pcmcia-cs

# cardmgr -V

Should be at least version 3.1.21

* PPP

# pppd --version

Should be at least version 2.4.0

* isdn4k-utils

# isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version

Should be at least version 3.1beta7

If you find that you have an older version of any of the following software, you can download the latest version from http://www.freshmeat.net. In most cases, if you already have a 2.2.x kernel, you won't require any additional downloading with the exception of a newer version of modutils.

Before you jump into compiling the kernel, move your older linux source kernel into a different directory to ensure that when you untar the 2.4.x kernel source, it doesn't overwrite your older kernel. For example,

# cd /usr/src

# mv linux linux-2.2.12

# tar xzpvf linux-2.4.1.tar.gz

This will move your older linux source into linux-2.2.12 directory and untar the downloaded kernel into the /usr/src/linux directory. Rename your older vmlinuz and System.map, in case they are files and not symlinks, and create a new entry in lilo to allow you to boot into your older kernel for last minute bail out, in case the 2.4.x kernel bombs out!

# cd /boot