Re: [gentoo-user] Managing my kernel

[Mark Kirkwood <markir@paradise.net.nz>]

Dan Farrell wrote:
> On Tue, 15 May 2007 12:33:22 +1200
> Mark Kirkwood <markir@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>> A friend of mine does this for his production servers:
>>
>> 1/ builds the known needed things into the kernel
>> 2/ disables loadable modules completely
>>
>> This is probably not suitable for some use cases...(new raid card 
>> ...ooops... redo kernel), but if you are deploying to known hardware
>> it is ok.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Mark
> But Why?  What's the benefit?  If the code isn't being used, it isn't
> going to slow down the kernel is it?  And the size of the kernel is
> irrelevant in my opinion -- the kernel is far from the predominant
> memory consumer on even a slow system.   I think it's more likely that
> you'll have a problem with your kernel configuration than your kernel
> performance, and modules are the only way to add kernel support without
> rebooting.  Furthermore, kernel modules have their own benefits --
> increased run-time configuration, for example (as opposed to a boot
> parameter). No, I agree with volker:
> 
>> everything needed for booting: in kernel
>> everything needed all the time: in kernel
>> everything that needs a good kicking once in a while (usb, sound):
>> modules everything that needs parameters: modules
>> everything that is not needed all the time: module
> 
> that way, you can also build modules on-the-fly to suit your needs and
> then compile them into the kernel, if desired, the next time you
> rebuild it.  

FWIW for my own Gentoo systems I've just used genkernel, as its so 
convenient - so I've probably ended up effectively doing volker's recipe 
too....

Cheers

Mark
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