From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 5701 invoked by uid 1002); 5 Oct 2003 00:54:27 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gentoo-dev-help@gentoo.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Received: (qmail 6565 invoked from network); 5 Oct 2003 00:54:27 -0000 X-WM-Posted-At: mailandnews.com; Sat, 4 Oct 03 20:54:27 -0400 From: Jason Stubbs To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 09:50:57 +0900 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.9 References: <3F7D4315.1020900@gentoo.org> <200310050828.34578.jasonbstubbs@mailandnews.com> <3F7F6307.1080001@gentoo.org> In-Reply-To: <3F7F6307.1080001@gentoo.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200310050950.57147.jasonbstubbs@mailandnews.com> Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Speaking of new kernels being added to the tree X-Archives-Salt: 6e0b48e2-a48c-4688-b3f4-aafd8c54f11b X-Archives-Hash: 8f3a9a17e7eedf4f49bc5fe480395bf7 On Sunday 05 October 2003 09:17, Kumba wrote: > Jason Stubbs wrote: > > It would make most sense to > > me to choose what classes of drivers/functionality I wanted through USE > > flags and then do post-installation configuration through > > /etc/modules.autoload*. Can anyone say why the kernel is special and > > should be done differently? - other than if it ain't broke don't fix it! > > Honestly, the kernel is special. Everyone has a different x86 > machine...different NIC card, sound card, video card, motherboard, IDE > chipset, scsi card, CPU....Some have V4L, some have I2C stuff, some have > parallel ports, some have ISA, some have PCI, some have both, some have > serial console, some have radeons, some have nvidias.....See the point? What I was thinking with the USE flag idea was that "audio", for example, would build all of the audio drivers, etc. Similar to what "emerge xfree" does. > x86 is *way* too diverse an architecture to configure solely through USE > Flags. How can it be set so we know whether someone has a VIA IDE > chipset and not an SiS, or how someone have a RealTek 8139-based NIC > card, and whether they need the old RealTek driver, or the newer one? Hmmm... it is safe to build in drivers for several chipsets, if not a little bloated. The old/new realtek driver couldn't be handled, however. But that's why it would be imperative to have a source extraction option to mimic what is presently done. > As much as we all love Gentoo for it's ability to configure things > easily (in most cases), the kernel to me is just that one little nuance > that stands apart from the base system. Everyone should learn how to > configure their kernel, in my opinion. It is probably the one thing > every linux distro should teach people how to do. The advantages far > outweigh the disadvantages, and by building their own kernel, the user > becomes aware of what is inside their machine. I agree that all users should really know how to build a kernel. But I also think that every user should know how to download a source tarball and compile and install it manually. Knowledge is power... All in all, I'm happy with the way things are done now. I'm just a firm believer in standards. Jason -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list