Re: kernel-{image,headers} package bloat
On Sun, Apr 22, 2001 at 01:38:42PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:
> This is exactly our disagreement. My position is that it is well within
> our capabilities to make this unnecessary. And you disagree with that
> which is fine with me.
It was recently calculated that there are over 2000 kernel options in
the 2.4-ac series. If you wanted to build a kernel with every possible
configuration of those options, well, it would be hard.
This is about choice. I want to compile my sound card's driver into
the kernel. I want to compile bttv, however, as a module. I also want
IDE as a module, but I want support for my particular scsi card (and
only that scsi card) built-in. I also want a custom set of IP options,
Athlon optimizations, and to be running the -ac branch.
I should build my own kernel, right?
And why is that kind of custom configuration different from saying "I
want my kernel to be optimized for XXX processor", of which there are
dozens of types? It's so much more unlikely that anyone would notice
the performance differences of your kernels than one would notice
feature differences in a suite of targeted kernels ("kernel for a
router", "kernel for a workstation", "kernel for a server"...). I
don't support distribution of more than one or two standard kernel
binaries, for the purpose of installations, but I'm merely trying to
show that CPU optimizations are the least of what important kernel
options and CPU optimizations exist. And that everyone should build their
own kernel to get the quality and performance they would expect from Debian.
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