Recently I'm interested in my system's throughput and fast start. I did a bootchart test and optimized the boot process. Now it's time to face the heart of every OS - the kernel
Firstly just wanted to say I'm not a geek, but I like to read and learn I did some research and search across the web and found some articles in Polish and English about making system kernel smaller, faster and preemptible. After collecting some knowledge I decided to recompile Mandriva's standard kernel, which in my case is



I'm not familiar with every option in the kernel config (who is???), but managed to recognize many and disable some of which I know will never be useful on my rig. Then I found, that there are some patches, like realtime-preempt. Before I try to apply one of them I wanted to know if:
1. Is it safe on Mandriva's kernels? I read somewhere that Mandriva and other user friendly distros have heavily patched kernels already and another patch may result in unstable kernel or even on one that would not compile at all.
2. Which patch from the page linked above is suitable for my kernel?
3. Which patches Mandriva's developers use to patch the kernel? Maybe some of them are crucial to its stability and security, so I wanted to know before I try to play with the kernel.

Thx in advance for all responses

I think you should ask these questions from the Mandriva kernel team. They sure know the answers for all your questions and I'm sure they gladly welcome another helping hand.

Where can I ask those questions? Is there an IRC channel or something? Maybe someone on this board know the answers

There is a kernel-discuss mailing list. That's the closest thing I've found. There is also the cooker ML or there is a #mandriva channel on Freenode if you prefer IRC.

I get this message when trying to access mentioned IRC channel



Maybe I'll try the mailing list...

EDIT:

O.K., I got the list of patches for my kernel If someone is interested, it's here.