Fedora Core 5 Issues

[Timothy Murphy]

Les Mikesell wrote:

>> These all seem to be kernel problems.
>> As I mentioned, I prefer to compile my kernels,
>> partly because I like to keep distribution and kernel separate.
> 
> That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless you consider
> the distribution's kernel to be broken.

First of all, I actually have to compile the kernel for some machines,
as none of the distribution kernels seem to work with my USB WiFi dongles.
(I have to compile the SVN version of orinoco_cs,
which requires the kernel sources to be present,
and adds the module to /lib/modules/2.6.whatever .)

But apart from that, I have a kind of philosophical reason
for preferring to compile the kernel (and also X).
This divides the setup into 3 separate issues,
and helps me to understand what is going on.
(I'm just explaining why I do it,
not suggesting anyone else should.)

Incidentally, I find running "make xconfig" is quite instructive.
Also, I've never looked into the choices made by distribution kernels,
but there must be several places where a conservative guess has to be made,
which must slow the kernel somewhat
(eg what processor do you have? do you have terabyte disks? etc).



-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland