Jim Hall wrote:
I've looked through the 2.6 kernel choices (x86 arch) and found the following.kernel-image-2.6-386 (generic vanilla) kernel-image-2.6-686 (Celeron/PII to P4) kernel-image-2.6-k7 (AMD Duron/Athlon)At the moment, the systems I'm dealing with fall into the 2nd & 3rd catagories. Is there an advantage to using those specific kernels instead of the 2.6-386? Is the CPU specificity that much "better" than the generic?Jim
The vanilla kernels are generic kernels, which are expected to work on as many systems as possible. That means, they have tons of modules for ancient and exotic hardware and only use CPU instructions which are available on any common x86. They are only useful for distributers, who want to make sure that e.g. during installation, a kernel is running which actually works. You definitely don't want to use a vanilla kernel as a final kernel for your system.
So only 2 and 3 are sane options for you I guess, but whether you're running an Intel or AMD CPU is something you should know yourself :p
-- Matthias Kaeppler