Invisible wrote:
> 
> Indeed yes.
> 
> Since even quite "large" programs take only a few seconds to compile,
> the Linux kernel must be *huge*...

So POV-Ray is much more than large? The machine I compiled it earlier
with is equipped with AMD Athlon64 X2 4450e ie. 2,3GHz dual-core, 64-bit
Athlon and 8GiB of memory. It's not the fastest machine on Earth, but I
wouldn't call it a slow one either (yet, after a year or two I'll
probably do that).

>> OpenOffice takes couple of hours IIRC.
> 
> ...and OpenOffice must be absolutely gigantic. 

Yes, it is a mammoth.

grunka ~ # du -hs /var/tmp/portage/app-office/openoffice-3.0.0/work/ooo/
2.6G    /var/tmp/portage/app-office/openoffice-3.0.0/work/ooo/

> But then, it's a pretty
> complex bit of software, so you'd expect that. The Linux kernel's job
> seems quite a bit simpler by comparison.

Errrr... It's not that simple. Try and make similar thing yourself.

btw:
grunka src # du -hs linux-2.6.26-gentoo-r4/
316M    linux-2.6.26-gentoo-r4/

That is non-compiled, non-configured set, ie. just kernel sources
equipped with Gentoo's patchset. So yes, it is huge :).

>> Linux kernel inholds
>> drivers for most of the hardware you're using (possibly even all of
>> them), does memory allocating, process handling, networking,
>> firewalling, RAID-handling, even cryptographic thingies.
> 
> Ah yes, I'm forgetting: The Linux "kernel" isn't just the OS kernel. How
> silly of me...

Linux kernel is a monolithic kernel, not a microkernel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel

> (It probably contains drivers for every piece of hardware known to
> mankind, even if you don't need it. And I'll bet even if you disable
> those parts, it still has to process that part of the source code to
> decide whether or not to compile it...)

No, it doesn't :(. That's one reason why Windows is still much more
widely used in workstations and especially in gaming computers.

I dunno exactly what the system checks from the source when I leave eg.
floppy disk driver out, but it does make the whole process faster.

-Aero

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