CUDA on RHEL 5.6

[ Sorry for the cross-post. I first posted to a general cuda discussion list then realized this might be better. Did not see a way to move the post. ]

OS: RHEL 5.x (originally 5.4, currently 5.6)
Kernel: 2.6.18-164, 2.6.18-238
GPU: Tesla s1070
Driver: currently 190.53
CUDA: currently 2.3

Hello,

I have a system that was originally installed with RHEL 5.4 (kernel 2.6.18-164). Driver 190.53 and CUDA toolkit / sdk 2.3 appeared to work fine with this kernel.

A user has requested I update to CUDA 3.x for Matlab PCT support. In addition, since installation, this system was updated by yum to RHEL 5.6 with kernel 2.6.18-238. From what I can see, release notes for CUDA 3.1 don’t mention kernel requirements. CUDA 3.2 release notes mention support for RHEL 5.5 with kernel 2.6.18-194.

Here’s my question. Given that yum makes rollback to RHEL 5.5 difficult (if not impossible), is there any reason not to try CUDA 3.2 with RHEL 5.6 / 2.6.18-238? Any caveats? If I take the try-it-and-see approach, which driver is best - the devdriver available on the page with CUDA downloads, or the most recent GA driver release available on the driver downloads page?

Thanks in advance for any advice.