On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 14:18:13 +1000, Marek W said:
Not so much the kernel. When compiling the kernel I'd prefer not to waste time
and space compiling the 100+ modules I will never ever use on my laptop.
It's actually a lot worse than that - here's my minimized custom kernel that
drives everything on my laptop and then some, and a recent Fedora kernel:
[/lib/modules]2 find 2.6.13-mm1/kernel/drivers -name '*.ko' | wc -l
37
[/lib/modules]2 find 2.6.12-1.1400_FC5/kernel/drivers/ -name '*.ko' | wc -l
832
(OK, so I *do* have a few builtins that Fedora builds as modules. That's gonna
change the numbers by half a dozen or so...)
I'd
prefer for something to select the modules necessary for my hardware. I can't
afford the time to keep up to date with that's new and what isn't, what has
changed, what has been superseded, which module works with which device,
chipset even, etc...
I'm of the opinion that if you don't have that much time, you should be using a
distro kernel where somebody *else* is taking the time. If you're the type
that builds their own kernel, the *last* thing you want is a tool glossing over
the fact that a module has been superceded. Who's going to take care of the
matching changes for /etc/modprobe.conf and similar userspace changes, and
other stuff like that? (I figure if 'make oldconfig' asks a question, I should
take notice, and any userspace changes that don't get made are my fault - and
if 'make oldconfig' switches drivers on me without asking, that's a *bug* that
lkml will hear about.. ;)