Why do people compile Fedora kernels?

[David C. Hart]

On Sun, 2003-11-16 at 07:13, Hoyt Duff wrote:

> 1) Fedora leaves the as-installed kernel source tree in a state that makes it 
> easier to compile additional modules, but not to compile a new kernel without 
> doing a "make mrproper" first.
> 2) The kernel must be compiled with a non-default version of GCC and unless 
> you know the magic incantation, a compile will fail. (export CC=gcc32)
> 3) This stuff is not in BOLD in the Release Notes (although nobody seems to 
> read them anyway), so few people know these facts.
> 

OTH, the stock kernel leaves much to be desired. It is configured for a
Pentium 2; It is bloated with additional code that is completely
unnecessary; It has high memory compiled in; to name a few issues.

I haven't done performance testing but, if you roll your own, you end up
with a smaller kernel. Smaller should be faster.

GCC32 is included with Fedora and Make automatically selects it - the
issue is transparent. YES, there is a problem with "active_load_balance"
and, yes, it is a PITA. No. There is no "magic incantation" since the
work-around seems to be inconsistent. 

All of that is unfortunate but I have found that the combination of one
linux source, two Don Carlos Robustos and three Sam Adams (lite, mind
you) provide the environment variables required for compilation -
eventually. 

                               ---------
            Quality Management - A Commitment to Excellence
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