How do I get and install an unmodified kernel?

So, I want to learn how to develop drivers for Linux.

And for that I heard it's recommended to use an unmodified kernel, since distributions can patch/change it a lot.

I downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid): http://releases.ubuntu.com/lucid/ubuntu-10.04.1-desktop-i386.iso.torrent

I found this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds

How do I know what's the most compatible kernel version for that Ubuntu release ?

I could not understand from the wiki page.

Solution 1:

If you click through to see what's available, you'll see that many of the kernels end in the release name (that is -maverick, -lucid etc).

The most compatible ones will be the ones for the release you're using. In your case, 10.04 is Lucid.

But it is usually possible to mismatch versions pretty heavily. I used a -maverick kernel on Lucid for quite a while and then switched back to compiling them straight from kernel.org myself (as I still do).