On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 20:58:37 +0000, Wol's lists wrote: > On 29/01/2019 19:41, Grant Taylor wrote: > > The kernel /must/ have (at least) the minimum drivers (and dependencies) > > to be able to boot strap. It doesn't matter if it's boot strapping an > > initramfs or otherwise.
> > All of these issues about lack of a driver are avoided by having the > > driver statically compiled into the kernel. > I'm not sure to what extent it's true of 64-bit hardware, but one of the > big problems with non-module kernels is actually being able to load them > into the available ram ... something to do with BG's "640K should be > enough for anyone". Uh? I've never had problems with my hand-configured kernels fitting into RAM, regardless of whether it's a 32-bit or 64-bit processor. A modular kernel is a workaround for binary kernels needing to support any and all hardware devices. If you load drivers for all these devices at the same time, you may well run out of RAM (or have done so in the relatively recent past). If you're configuring the kernel for a specific machine, I can't see how you could run out of RAM, unless there's too little of it to run GNU/Linux anyway. > Cheers, > Wol -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
