Installation suggestion: recommend recompiling kernel
Hi there,
I was just thinking about the fact that the answer to many questions
that I see on the list (mostly "how do I get sound?") is "recompile your
kernel". Also the fact that recompiling the kernel is pretty much
recommended in any situation.
It occurred to me that perhaps, after the rest of the installation is
finished, it might be possible to ask "Recompiling your kernel is
required to enable sound and is recommended in any case in order to tune
the performance of your machine. Do you wish to configure and recompile
your kernel now?" [default yes].
"What version of the kernel would you like to install? [list of
available kernel-source versions]"
Then, after [downloading and] installing kernel-source, you would be
dropped into a restricted version of "make menuconfig" - I say
restricted because many of the options are confusing to a newbie ("if
you enable this option and type mknod bananana, you will get a device
/dev/ook. You can use ioctl on this file with the SIOCHEDGEHOG parameter
to move your computer through lspace and murder your grandfather") and
could be hidden behind an "advanced" tab somewhere. Even better, look at
the modules that were enabled when the user did their modconf and take
all the other modules out of the kernel by default. Also, some of the
modules could be defaulted to compiled in, when there are no parameters
needed.
The installation process could then run an appropriate make-kpkg and
dpkg command for you.
Of course, this whole sequence should be available again later by
running an appropriate command.
Thoughts?
Stuart.
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