Re: Stock kernel - it works everywhere because?
On 2009-03-20, Adrian Levi <adrian.levi@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>
You'd customize the config file, don't select those modules you do not need.
The compile time may reduce.
Reply to: