-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 This may be a bit on the philosophical side (well, for geeks like me at least), but... I know that SuSE - and for that matter almost all distributors - modifies the kernel that is distributed. The question then becomes: why? Exactly what do we gain or lose if we use a vanilla kernel as distributed by linux.org? If the changes in the kernels are that important, then why aren't they in the vanilla kernel? How many of you are using a vanilla kernel instead of the one distributed by SuSE? tia - ---Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFBAq0HjeziQOokQnARAnAWAJ0Zzq2jqoqv8/WNQh7lS9JsZ/cYGgCgmtXq GibrxAvAAcfggrwpD6rqJu4= =lJnM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Saturday 24 July 2004 02:39 pm, Michael Satterwhite wrote:
This may be a bit on the philosophical side (well, for geeks like me at least), but...
I know that SuSE - and for that matter almost all distributors - modifies the kernel that is distributed. The question then becomes: why? Exactly what do we gain or lose if we use a vanilla kernel as distributed by linux.org? If the changes in the kernels are that important, then why aren't they in the vanilla kernel? How many of you are using a vanilla kernel instead of the one distributed by SuSE?
I almost always use a vanilla kernel rather than figure out the mish-mash of updating with SuSE's various kernels. Nothing against their messing with the kernel, but I've never noticed that I was missing anything (except the XFS bugs of late) and I've avoided a lot of problems. For 9.1, building a 2.6.7 kernel was done within minutes of completing the install.... so I could get to my xfs partitions. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 07/24/04 15:02 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else."
Op zaterdag 24 juli 2004 20:39, schreef Michael Satterwhite:
This may be a bit on the philosophical side (well, for geeks like me at least), but...
I know that SuSE - and for that matter almost all distributors - modifies the kernel that is distributed. The question then becomes: why?
Supported hardware, what else? Regards, -- Jos van Kan
On Sat, 2004-07-24 at 13:39 -0500, Michael Satterwhite wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
This may be a bit on the philosophical side (well, for geeks like me at least), but...
I know that SuSE - and for that matter almost all distributors - modifies the kernel that is distributed. The question then becomes: why?
To add features they feel are beneficial to their customers but that haven't been accepted into the mainline kernel yet. SuSE employs some kernel hackers, such as Andrea Arcangeli. In SuSE's version of 2.6 we get, for example, his version of a virtual memory manager. There is also a number of other patches, in the 2.4 kernel it was several thousand, I don't know what the number is at present in 2.6, for various little things, boot logging before the log daemon has started, the boot splash image, and lots more. Note also that in the new scheme for the kernel.org kernels, the distributor kernels will be the only ones tagged "stable". AIUI, kernel.org will be going into a permanent state of development from now on, making life difficult for those who run the so-called "vanilla" kernels
Michael Satterwhite wrote:
Exactly what do we gain or lose if we use a vanilla kernel as distributed by linux.org? If the changes in the kernels are that important, then why aren't they in the vanilla kernel? How many of you are using a vanilla kernel instead of the one distributed by SuSE?
I had been running vanila 2.6 kernels in my 8.2 since test11 (this week I updated to 9.1). After updating the 9.1 kernel (security update), it wouldn't boot with the SuSE kernel. I have left a 2.6.6 build and have ran 2.6.7 since it was released as stable. Without my 'vanila' kernels it would have been much harder to recover from that security update (which bug is still in the KOTD for my system). So, advantages are it is easier to keep multiple kernels ready, and you can configure it more closely match your system. Disadvantages are maybe less functionality though that hasn't been my experience. I do patch the vanila with the bootsplash patch as well as the tiocgdev patch. HTH -- Joe Morris New Tribes Mission Email Address: Joe_Morris@ntm.org Web Address: http://www.mydestiny.net/~joe_morris Registered Linux user 231871 God said, I AM that I AM. I say, by the grace of God, I am what I am.
participants (5)
-
Anders Johansson -
Bruce Marshall -
Joe Morris (NTM) -
Jos van Kan -
Michael Satterwhite