Do you hear about Vanilla kernel?

Simply all the kernel that downloaded from the http://kernel.org/ are "Vanilla Kernel".


 We know that the home site of the linux kernel is at http://kernel.org/.  All the linux distributions will use the stable linux kernel from here(of different kernle versions[for ex: 2.6.32.46, 2.6.35.14 etc]). 

  Here comes the difference, so some distributions will patch the kernel before use it in its distribution.  For example SUSE's kernel patch for boot screen animation, Debian's kernel patch for LOGO , bad-ram.  [ Page to debian's kernel patches ]. 

 Now consider the security patches like SElinux, grsecurity.  The team that works on these projects are not able to know, monitor & follow back the kernel patch by different linux distributions.  So, they do write patches only to the kernel in http://kernel.org/.

 So, its true that the kernel you are using may not be completely same as the Vanilla kernel, even if they are same kernel versions.  Some features/securites that patched in one distribution and may not be patched in another.  So if one want a Plain kernel he should go with vanilla kernel download only from http://kernel.org/ not from their distribution's repository.