Cannot update kernel-devel in CentOS 6.5

Question

First of all I want to note that I am booting CentOS from a flash drive (if it matters).

Now I am trying to install Nvidia drivers for my GPU but the problem is that I must update kernel-devel first. I did the following:

yum update 
yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers gcc make 
yum -y upgrade kernel kernel-devel

After that I checked which kernel I am using:

uname -r

Which gave me this: 2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64

Then I did: rpm -q kernel-devel , with the following result: kernel-devel-2.6.32-504.el6.x86_64

I tried to upgrade again, but it said "No Packages marked for Update "

When I tried to install the kernel again, it said that I already have installed the latest version:

Package kernel-devel-2.6.32-504.el6.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Package kernel-headers-2.6.32-504.el6.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Package gcc-4.4.7-11.el6.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Package 1:make-3.81-20.el6.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

I am confused and I don't know how to make the lates kernel active, so I can install my Nvidia drivers.

Answer 1

Usually which kernel to use is selected via grub at boot time. If you have both installed its most likely that grub is still starting the older kernel.

You can look at /etc/grub.conf to make sure "default" is set to what you would expect. Default is 0 keyed off the "Title" entry.

Did you reboot? most of the time the latest kernel is set to default in grub.conf and a reboot is all you need.

Also https://serverfault.com/a/623755 might be the answer.