At the risk of exposing my vast ignorance, I just don't get kernel versioning. Maybe someone can explain it to me. I run one server, and although I've pretty much looked after everything on it for the last 3 years, I've always had my data centre do the occasional kernel updates. That's actually something I'd like to do, but I thought was pretty risky to do without console access if things went bad.
Anywise, I subscribe to a Linux kernel version rss feed. It says the current snapshot is 2.6.22.git5. Here I see 2.6.9-55.0.2.ELsmp discussed as new. The kernel on my CentOS 3.8 server is 2.6.17.11-grsec-IS #1 SMP and it is at least 6-8 months old.
So, is 2.6.9-55.0.2.ELsmp old or new? Should I be updating mine to something newer?