[Linux-disciples] Making kernel customization easier

[Adam Rosi-Kessel]

I can't recommend any system that conforms to your request, but I would
suggest starting with the stock 2.6.7 kernel in sarge.

There are, of course, many modules built for the stock kernel that you
don't need; but that's okay, because they won't load.

A lot of what you're requesting is done by scripts which automatically
detect hardware (e.g., discover, hotplug) and load the proper kernel
modules.  It's not really meant to be done at the build stage.

I would be surprised if you found a measurable performance difference
between a stock kernel and a lean, mean, slim kernel built only with the
minimum options you need.  Of course there's something cool about having
a vmlinuz under 1M, but I just don't think you'll be able to tell the
difference.

The sarge installer is (or is supposed to) give you the choice between a
2.4 or 2.6 kernel, by the way.  I'm pretty sure I've seen this option and
chosen 2.6 without a problem in the past.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2004 at 02:54:14PM -0400, Stephen R Laniel wrote:
> Sarge ships with a 2.4 kernel, apparently, which I just now
> wanted to upgrade to 2.6.7 using 'make oldconfig' and the
> config file from my /boot directory. But there were so many
> changes between those two kernel versions, apparently, that
> I got too irritated with the number of questions and just
> aborted the process.
> 
> So: can someone point me to any packages that help trim the
> number of questions that the 'make' scripts ask? E.g., I'd
> like a package that would look at my hardware configuration,
> see that I have, say, an nVidia Riva128 graphics card,
> compile the driver for that card into the kernel, and not
> bother with any of the other graphics-card drivers. The
> package I have in my head would ask me something like,
> "Would you prefer not to install drivers for hardware that
> you lack? Bear in mind that if you add new hardware later,
> you'll need to compile a new module for that hardware."
> 
> This package would see that I have no RAID controllers, so
> it wouldn't ask me any questions about anything related to
> RAID. And so forth.
> 
> Does such a package exist?
> 

-- 
Adam Rosi-Kessel
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org
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