Configuration of current kernel

[David Adam]

Helge,

Firstly, this really isn't the right list for these questions. You should
be sending them to freebsd-questions at freebsd.org instead.

However, I'll do my best to help you out.

Features like ext2fs (and, in fact, any file system that you don't want to
boot off), snd_emu101k, and just about anything that goes in your kernel
config (there are some notable exceptions, and you shouldn't leave out
anything that you need to get your machine booting) can be left out of
your kernel config file and instead loaded as modules.

When you compile a kernel, it's a bit different to Linux, in that EVERY
kernel module gets compiled and can (usually) be kldloaded later. This
means that the compile takes a bit longer but you often don't have to
recompile to add things like new sound cards or network cards.

When you're reading the NOTES file, remember to read both
/usr/src/sys/conf/NOTES and /usr/src/sys/<arch>/conf/NOTES, as there are
options that are common across architectures (like ALTQ) and then those
that are specific to various architectures.

I'm aware that the above doesn't make a whole heap of sense, particularly
if you come from a Linux kernel background. I learned FreeBSD first, and I
think it will probably help if you can forget everything you think that
you know about compiling kernels. Also, I've been at the GNOME 2.10
Release Party here in Perth, so there may be factual errors in things that
I've written (listen out for us on LUGRadio, though!)

Cheers,

David Adam
zanchey at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au