Re: Stock kernel - it works everywhere because?
2009/3/20 Matthew Smith <matt@smiffytech.com>:
> Hi Folks
>
> Nearing the end of my journey now (Gentoo to Debian migration.) Setting up
> VMware Workstation from the official distribution (this is the commercial
> one that I use) requires me to re-build the kernel so that it and the VMware
> modules are compiled with the same version of gcc.
>
> I derived the .config for the kernel I am building from /proc/config.gz
>
> This is a HUGE build, taking forever. May sound like a daft question, but
> is the ease-of-use of the stock kernel due to the fact that drivers for
> EVERYTHING are built as modules?
>
> Not used to distros that just work - especially with odd wireless drivers -
> so forgive me if I sound a little stunned!
Everything is compiled as modules, necessary items are included in an
initrd image that is loaded at boot time. so that the modules are
available for thins such as mounting you preferred file system and the
modules to access the required block device.
If everything was compiled in the kernel would work just as well but
it would be huge!
Note that (at least there used to be) specific Debian patches applied
to the Debianised kernel sources to allow things such as a cramfs
initrd. I am not sure if this is still the case for cramfs
specifically (may have been merged into the vanilla kernel) but there
are still specific kernel patches applied AFAIK.
Welcome to Debian propper! ;-)
Adrian
--
24x7x365 != 24x7x52 Stupid or bad maths?
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to
ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my
apartment it is.
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