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Re: kernel 2.4.x and unstable/ Kernels



On Sat, Sep 08, 2001 at 09:42:34PM -0700, Craig Dickson wrote:
> Nathan E Norman wrote:
> 
> > Once you manage more than one machine, you will find reasons to prefer
> > kernel-package :)
> 
> You mean, once I manage more than one machine that will run exactly the
> same kernel. Right now, I have two Debian boxes, but one is a P3 running
> Sid (kernel 2.4.9) and the other is an original Pentium (complete with
> the FP divide bug) running Potato (2.2.19).

Uh, this doesn't make sense.  There's no limitation which says you
can't build kernels on one machine which are customised for another
(entirely different) machine.

> Sure, if you have a number of machines that will be well-served running
> the same kernel, and you handle variations in hardware with loadable
> modules, then a packaged kernel would be useful. With only a few
> machines, I'd rather just build a custom kernel for each one, tuned for
> exactly that machine's hardware, with loadable module support disabled.

Sounds familiar.  Why you think this is not possible with
kernel-package is beyond me.

> This way, there are only two files to install for a kernel (vmlinuz and
> System.map), so a kernel package has no significant advantage over doing
> it all by hand.

I maintain (more or less) four boxes ... a celeron (my home machine),
an athlon (my work desktop), a 486 (my firewall), and a p90 (a server
with no portfolio).  I compile all the kernels on the athlon because,
well, it's just too painful to sit around waiting for the other
machines to finish the job.  The p90 and especially the 486 are
practically useless while compiling a kernel.  Since the athlon has
the biggest (and fastest) disks, I need kernel-source trees on one
machine rather than spread all over the place (let's see, I downloaded
the ipsec patch where?  Did I patch this tree, or was that the other
box?)  This is a significant advantage.

Cheers,

-- 
Nathan Norman - Staff Engineer | A good plan today is better
Micromuse Ltd.                 | than a perfect plan tomorrow.
mailto:nnorman@micromuse.com   |   -- Patton

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