On Thu, 2012-06-14 at 18:35 +0200, solsTiCe d'Hiver wrote:
Anyway, is a kernel configuration and (re)compilation really worth the pain and time ??
Is a custom kernel giving any benefit or speed-up apart from something marginal and more about the feeling than anything else ?
I gave up trying to make one just by lazyness on archlinux. I did that many years when I used slackware.
But that's a thing to do at least once in a lifetime of course :-)
The advantage of having a kernel with more than what is needed is, that it's easier to change hardware if needed. I don't reduce the sizes of my kernels, the drawback is, that it takes around 90 minutes to compile a kernel on an AMD dual-core 2.1GHz, 4GB RAM, 2 jobs. Regarding to the used size or performance IMO it's useless to reduce the kernel's contend, simply don't load unneeded modules. IIRC the OP wishes to learn, IOW he'll do this as an exercise.