Re: USB disk shows up late at boot
Celejar put forth on 12/21/2009 8:22 PM:
> 1) Faster booting, since irrelevant drivers aren't loaded and won't
> spend time probing.
Correct. And not just drivers. Prebuilt kernels usually include netfilter
support (for iptables), which increases the size of the kernel substantially,
along with mdraid support, and some other capabilities most desktop users don't
need. Using a custom kernel allows you to eliminate the need for an initrd,
speeds up the boot process by compiling all the drivers your hardware needs
directly into the kernel, and cuts down the kernel's memory footprint. On
current systems with multiple gigs of ram and large CPU L2/L3 caches,
admittedly, the size of the kernel isn't a big issue for most desktop and server
class systems these days. It most certainly is critical for embedded
applications, where processors have relatively low performance, with tiny
caches, and small system memories.
> 2) Security - one of these null pointer dereferences that they keep
> discovering can't hurt you if it's in code that hasn't been included.
This is a valid point, though others would argue the opposite, that pre compiled
kernels lacking modules can't easily have the driver code updated with a
security fix, without compiling a new kernel. I personally will take my chances
with my precompiled kernel.
> 3) Education - it's an unbeatable way to get a deeper knowledge of
> your system.
In the big picture, this is probably the single greatest advantage to doing
one's own custom kernel.
> 4) Flexibility and control
Yes and no WRT flexibility. Yes because you an choose exactly what does and
does not go into your kernel. No, because once it's built, if you want to add a
new hardware device later, you might have to build a new kernel. With the
modular prebuilt kernels, you can plug in just about anything and it'll likely
be recognized. Then again, there's nothing keeping one from building his/her
own kernel and including drivers in anticipation of future needs. The downside
to this is kernel bloat for hardware you're not using "right now". I obviously
agree that you have more control doing your own kernel.
> Note that I'm not expert, and these are just my opinions, and may even
> be factually incorrect.
>From one non-expert to another, I agree with most of what you state. I've been
running only custom kernels for 5+ years now (servers only) with great success
and satisfaction.
--
Stan
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