On 2003.12.08 08:15 Eric G Ortego wrote: > I've never installed debian, still cannot get over the fact that the > debian stable consists of a 2.2 kernel, and I know they include a 2.4 > but doesn't that make 90% of the debian users on unstable which means the > stable isn't even being pressed for improvements or fixes just upgrades? > Ill stick with gentoo. >
Eh, get over it, it's easy and it works for people like me. Both the 2.2 and 2.4 kernels used have fine stability and are easily replaced. The "stable" debian distribution is just that and 90% of Debian users are not on unstable because they use an alternate kernel. It's easy to change out kernels and they have been put into the security program to help keep you from being exploited with known flaws. Kernels for different lines of x86 architectures have been made into binary packages that are almost as easy to swap out as one version of vi for another. There are a bunch of compiled kernels that are considered "stable" on the mirrors. You should also be aware, however, that it was not too long ago that 2.4 had issues. >From http://debian.math.lsu.edu "The personal experience of the author was that they were highly unreliable up to about version 2.4.19, and still have some disturbing quirks, that can mostly corrected if you know where to get the patches. The previous release kernels (the 2.2.x series) are pretty much rock solid at doing the things that they can do at all. Unfortunately, some fairly important drivers are only available in the 2.4 series kernels (such as USB and up-to-date MegaRaid SCSI drivers) that may preclude the use of a 2.2 kernel." The author then goes on to a specific gripe list. I use 2.4 kernels for hardware issues and because I don't really care about STABILITY. Entergy drops power to my house every 90 days or so and never manages to keep it up more than six months. Only one of my computers has trouble staying up for six months because it has a known bad hard drive mounted as the root partition! The poor P133 is a music box and one day I'll take the effort to change out that disk. The debian people have also made it easy to roll your own kernel and share it. I wrote a little kernel compile for the complete nube, myself, here: http://www.hillnotes.org/brlug/compile/kernel_compile.html Because the kernel does all the hardware manipulation for everything, what is gained from compiling everything with hardware optimizations? OK, X too might be nice to compile, but what advantages do you get from compiling things like vi? Gentoo is a neat project and I intend to put it on at least one machine, but it's one of those learning project for me. One thing for sure, it will teach me how to set architectures in GCC, which I don't know how to do right now. It would make a nice addition to my kernel compile for nubes, hint hint.
