Advantages of trimmed kernel?
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se
Sun Dec 10 07:53:37 PST 2006
On Sun, Dec 10, 2006 at 09:19:59AM -0600, Lane wrote:
> On Sunday 10 December 2006 09:05, Kirk Strauser wrote:
> > Are there any real advantages to building a kernel stripped of unused
> > drivers, especially when running it on a fairly large machine? For years,
> > I've been dutifully removing device drivers (or more recently, including
> > GENERIC and using 'nodevice') for everything I don't have. But does this
> > actually do anything useful, or am I just tilting at windmills?
> >
> > I know the definitive answer would be to run benchmarks both ways, but I
> > don't really have the option of pulling down a production machine just for
> > this.
> Kirk,
>
> I don't expect there is only one answer to your question. The issue is
> broader, I think, than just the relative speed and performance improvements
> achieved by running a lean kernel.
>
> You say that you can't afford to take a production machine down, but consider
> this: What if you trimmed all of the "fat" from the kernel on a server, and
> then the server's nic goes bad. Suppose that as a stop-gap measure you pull
> an old isa nic from out of the closet, install it, and then boot the
> server ... only to realize that your nic is not supported by the kernel that
> you dutifully trimmed.
In which case it is a good thing that most drivers are available as
modules so that you can load them even if the driver is not included
in the kernel.
>
> I think it is especially important to keep the kernel as flexible as possible,
> since you may have to install the OS on any given machine without the luxury
> of recompiling.
>
--
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se
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