On 16.11.2011 08:53, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Looks like people from the ArchLinux team have been working on this. I personally would love a kernel optimized for my netbook, and for the clients I What's the difference to their standard kernel?

Maintaining additional kernel flavours is pretty expensive, so there better be very good reasons for that. I frankly don't understand that much of it, but the one part I did understand is it being optimized to the Intel Atom processors. Sorry I can't be much more helpful than that, but of all things to understand kernel internals are among

On Wednesday, November 16, 2011 09:13:59 AM Stefan Seyfried wrote: the most esoteric. -- "At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head under the exhaust of a bus until he revived." -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Am Mittwoch, 16. November 2011, 00:35:23 schrieb Roger Luedecke:

On Wednesday, November 16, 2011 09:13:59 AM Stefan Seyfried wrote:

...

On 16.11.2011 08:53, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Looks like people from the ArchLinux team have been working on this. I personally would love a kernel optimized for my netbook, and for the clients I

What's the difference to their standard kernel?

Maintaining additional kernel flavours is pretty expensive, so there better be very good reasons for that.

I frankly don't understand that much of it, but the one part I did understand is it being optimized to the Intel Atom processors. Sorry I can't be much more helpful than that, but of all things to understand kernel internals are among the most esoteric.

You would love the new kernel flavour but you do not know why? Does not make sense to me. You should know what you gain and whether it's worth pulling resources from other projects. The sales of netbooks decrease and IMHO their time is over and tablets will overtake them shortly if they did not already. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On 11/16/2011 9:43 AM, Claudio Freire wrote:

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 5:13 AM, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

...

...

Looks like people from the ArchLinux team have been working on this. I personally would love a kernel optimized for my netbook, and for the clients I

What's the difference to their standard kernel?

I don't see anything really important there, except perhaps power management settings and reduced memory footprint.

But I wouldn't think the reduced footprint (50M to 10M) is justified. Yes, it's a 5x reduction, but it's also only 40M, most netbooks have around 1G nowadays. Maybe if it was an embedded system or a tablet. Or maybe the reduced footprint also reduces battery consumption?

So, I would say, not really worth the maintenance overhead unless measurements prove it otherwise.

Maybe you have to do it to determine if it was worth doing. I think it's good enough for now to let them do it because it only takes one to perform the experiment, it will apply to all. We just won't be seen as "leaders" and "innovators" if it turns out to be worth doing after all. Or maybe the process of maintaining a kernel flavor shouldn't be so expensive. Rather than work on a new package, work on improving the automation even more (I know it's already considerable!), then anyone could make a -netbook kernel in a home repo. You know, in your "copious free time" :) -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On 11/16/2011 6:51 PM, Greg KH wrote:

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 06:15:04PM -0500, Brian K. White wrote:

...

On 11/16/2011 9:43 AM, Claudio Freire wrote:

...

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 5:13 AM, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

...

...

Looks like people from the ArchLinux team have been working on this. I personally would love a kernel optimized for my netbook, and for the clients I

What's the difference to their standard kernel?

I don't see anything really important there, except perhaps power management settings and reduced memory footprint.

But I wouldn't think the reduced footprint (50M to 10M) is justified. Yes, it's a 5x reduction, but it's also only 40M, most netbooks have around 1G nowadays. Maybe if it was an embedded system or a tablet. Or maybe the reduced footprint also reduces battery consumption?

So, I would say, not really worth the maintenance overhead unless measurements prove it otherwise.

Maybe you have to do it to determine if it was worth doing. I think it's good enough for now to let them do it because it only takes one to perform the experiment, it will apply to all.

We just won't be seen as "leaders" and "innovators" if it turns out to be worth doing after all.

Um, no one has yet to determine exactly what this is, so don't try to insult us before that please.

...

Or maybe the process of maintaining a kernel flavor shouldn't be so expensive.

Any hints on making it easier is greatly appreciated. Seriously.

...

Rather than work on a new package, work on improving the automation even more (I know it's already considerable!), then anyone could make a -netbook kernel in a home repo. You know, in your "copious free time" :)

You can easily do that today, what needs to be done there?

thanks,

I'm not actually saying to do anything. I'm saying as long as someone else, Arch, is already going to perform the experiment of trying to optimize a kernel for netbooks, or maybe just atom netbooks, then there's not much reason for anyone else to do it until the numbers come back. But it's also not automatically stupid for at least one entity to at least try it once to see if it was worth doing, instead of saying, well unless you can show it's worth doing then it's a waste to do it. That logic means it would never get tried out even once. Try not to let my disdain for Tumbleweed to bleed over into other areas. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

I'd be willing to test one. Wouldn't be able to build it I don't think, since thats a level of code voodoo I doubt I'd be prepared for anytime soon. On Thu, 2011-11-17 at 13:15 -0300, Claudio Freire wrote:

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 1:43 AM, Brian K. White wrote:

...

But it's also not automatically stupid for at least one entity to at least try it once to see if it was worth doing, instead of saying, well unless you can show it's worth doing then it's a waste to do it. That logic means it would never get tried out even once.

Oh, I'm not just saying.

I've been doing performance optimization for a long time, so I read the checklist and think: how does this help netbooks?

The answer: most of what's there doesn't. A few things I mentioned would, but I would expect only marginally.

Expectation is the key: I don't expect it to be worth it, as isn't building your whole distribution with -O3. People still engage in worthless endeavors. Like building your whole distro with -O3 and claiming it's super cool.

But in this particular case, I doubt. I expect it not to be worth it, but it might.

I don't have a netbook, so I won't try. If I had one, you bet I'd try, because I'm curious.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

I could try building the kernel and what not... but I'd need quite a bit of help most likely; unless of course its easier than I think. On Thu, 2011-11-17 at 10:00 -0800, Greg KH wrote:

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 11:43:41PM -0500, Brian K. White wrote:

...

I'm not actually saying to do anything. I'm saying as long as someone else, Arch, is already going to perform the experiment of trying to optimize a kernel for netbooks, or maybe just atom netbooks, then there's not much reason for anyone else to do it until the numbers come back.

I've done a special kernel "optimized" for the Atom netbook platform in the past, for other SUSE products[1], and yes, there are real benefits to do that if you are running that type of hardware on both power savings and some performance numbers.

But, and this is the big but, you have to have someone willing to maintain that configuration, and the infrastructure in which to be able to properly select that kernel "flavor", which, for openSUSE, I don't think we have.

If you really want, and need, something like this, it's almost easier to just build your own custom kernels for your specific hardware, there are whole books written[2] on how to do this type of thing.

...

Try not to let my disdain for Tumbleweed to bleed over into other areas.

I have no idea what Tumbleweed matters for this topic at all, with the exception that you seem to hold me in some sort of weird disdain for it, which is fine, I can easily make the feeling mutual :)

thanks,

greg k-h

[1] Meego and before that, Moblin [2] http://files.kroah.com/lkn/ is one such example, free online.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 6:20 PM, Claudio Freire wrote:

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 6:05 PM, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

I could try building the kernel and what not... but I'd need quite a bit of help most likely; unless of course its easier than I think.

Well, OBS can take care of quite a lot, but that kernel has firmware that can't go into OBS.

So if you try OBS, you'll have to leave the firmware part out.

In any case, you just go to the sources[0], get the patches, rebase them for 12.1's kernel, apply the config also there with the sources, and it should be it.

Forgot the link: [0] https://github.com/dieghen89/kernel-netbook -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 06:20:37PM -0300, Claudio Freire wrote:

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 6:05 PM, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

I could try building the kernel and what not... but I'd need quite a bit of help most likely; unless of course its easier than I think.

Well, OBS can take care of quite a lot, but that kernel has firmware that can't go into OBS.

So if you try OBS, you'll have to leave the firmware part out.

No, not "firmware", it's "closed source kernel driver that can not be redistributed", so it's a problem with the original poster of that kernel, they are the ones going to get into trouble. thanks, greg k-h -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org