On Wed, 10 Jun 2015, Stéphane ancelot wrote: Please: - Do not top post - Trim your replies > here is an example with linux-3.18.13 and patch 3.18.13-rt10: > 3.18.13-rt10 > > zcat ../patches-3.18.13-rt10.tar.gz |patch -p1 --dry-run You are trying to apply a tarball of patches instead of a single combined patch. Use patch-3.18.13-rt10.gz instead. Thanks, tglx