One of our customers at work uses openSUSE linux. They have openSUSE 11.1 and use a kernel that they update by hand. That is all well and good, but doing that can cause problems with maintaining your system via the standard repositories not to mention many other issues. One of the points of Enterprise linux distributions is to use a single kernel and only back port really important things as needed. This saves a colossal headache. This is how Microsoft, SUN, IBM, all of them do it for all their projects.

Supporting every kernel is a ridiculous exorcise in futility. There are a million of them and every one is using a different one. They all have their own issues and at any moment people will switch, thus screwing you for support. Technically, we do not support 'stock' kernels. We support the enterprise Linux distributions and the kernels they come with. I say technically because we will probably support anything someone is willing to pay us to support. I'm not sure what the limitations of that statement are.

We call a custom build for a customer to play with a one-off build. I do any way. No one else seems to have to deal with one-off support. Doing this for a flavor of SUSE is one thing, but this customer mentioned some strange linux that none of the people in my organization had ever heard of. That is odd because we are a company of geeks who pay very close attention to the world around linux. knowing the ins and outs of some obscure distribution is a matter of bragging rights around here. The name they gave was "bespoke linux".

OK, people in the U. K. may stop laughing any time now. the word "bespoke" means custom. A bespoke tailer makes custom cloths. We do not support bespoke linux.