Warp wrote:
> Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>>         I don't do it often - probably 1-3 times a year.
> 
>   I really can't understand why some people seem to be constantly compiling
> the linux kernel.
> 
>   Guess how many times I have compiled the linux kernel in my life.

	I'm tempted to simply answer with: "Read the rest of that message."

	But that probably will just lead to "Why did you have to do it the
first time?"

	Answer: I was doing a Stage 1 Gentoo install - which meant compiling
*everything* from scratch. That must, of course, include the kernel.

	It's quite conceivable that the default kernel options will miss out a
lot (as it did for, say, DAV support and I believe does for the MPPE
support I need for the PPTP VPN). So you then go and recompile to enable
those.

	Then you have my embedded network card. Support for that was needed at
the kernel level. At the time, default kernels did not have support for
it, and you'd have to get it from the manufacturer and compile it as a
kernel module. Probably most popular distributions patched the kernel,
but I was on Gentoo and had to do it myself (which, kind of, is the
point of Gentoo). The kernels include it now by default.

	Since I *had* to compile the kernel to install Gentoo(+), I went for
minimalism - I disabled everything I didn't need. Then recompiled
whenever I needed more. As the default setup wouldn't have worked
anyway, and I had to make menuconfig anyway, why not do it right?

	Do popular distributions have everything enabled in the kernel by
default? I really doubt it. So none of you has ever needed to install a
package that required some kernel support - only to find that the
distro's kernel didn't enable that feature?

	I don't see what the big deal is, and why people keep heavily
emphasizing to others that one shouldn't have to compile the kernel.
It's fairly straightforward, and doesn't break anything for me. In the
old days, you'd have to recompile ALSA and a few other packages
everytime you compiled the kernel, but those days are gone.

(+) Neglecting the technicality that I didn't have to do a Stage 1
install. In my case, though, that was the whole reason I was installing
Gentoo to begin with. And was well rewarded for the effort.

-- 
(Ice rocks hit the hull)  "Captain, we are being hailed."


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                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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