will hill wrote:
>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. > hehe sorry, excuse my debian ignorance I did start the post with "I've never installed debian" mabe I should have also added that I'm not a debian user seemd to be inclusive. I think most linux users know that kernel replacement is trivial even for the novice. > >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 > > kickass! gentoo has a tool called genkernel for x86 it does hardware detection kernel config & compile, lets you choose any of the x86 kernels included in the portage tree, is very nice. >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? > One of the things which attracted me to Gentoo was the fact that it is a source based distribution, this allows the me complete control over what features and support are built into all installed applications. I like not having things installed which I do not need or use. By defining USE flags, these are keywords that define options used on a system-wide basis to configure applications during their compilation procedures (also known as emergeing), I get that control not only when installing a package but when checking ( qpkg ) packages for what is compiled in them. So I can now rebuild an entire system with the same useflags or with additional or fewer use flags with a simple script. To rebuild an entire system using the USE flags that the individual packages were compiled with I can do for I in `emerge -eDp world | grep ebuild | awk '{print $4}' | sed "s/\-[0-9].*//g"` do USE="`etcat -u $I | grep "\+ [0-9,a-z]" | awk '{print $3}'` `etcat -u $I | grep "\- [0-9,a-z]" | awk '{print $2 $3}'`" emerge --nodeps --oneshot -pv $I || ech o -e "$Not compiled" >> ~/empty.log done > >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. > kool, you might be plesantly supprised at exactly how much documentation the gentoo project has. I guess the developers have time to jot notes durring those long emerges. > > >_______________________________________________ >General mailing list >[email protected] >http://brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net > >. > > >
