kernel compile questions

[Guest accorn]

Hi - I'm a newbie and I've been messing around with compiling a kernel from source just to learn really.

I successfully compiled 2.6.18 (on mandriva 2007) with all of the default options and got it to boot, but now i'm trying to remove things I dont need since I assume the point of compiling your own kernel is to save resources by removing devices that you don't use?

 

Below is my lspci output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb Host Bridge (rev a1)

00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb LPC Bridge (rev a2)

00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce 250Gb PCI System Management (rev a1)

00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK8S USB Controller (rev a1)

00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK8S USB Controller (rev a1)

00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)

00:05.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK8S Ethernet Controller (rev a2)

00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a1)

00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK8S Parallel ATA Controller (v2.5) (rev a2)

00:0a.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK8S Serial ATA Controller (v2.5) (rev a2)

00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb AGP Host to PCI Bridge (rev a2)

00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb PCI-to-PCI Bridge (rev a2)

00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration

00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map

00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller

00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AS [Radeon 9550]

01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 ?? [Radeon 9550] (Secondary)

 

One thing i'm confused about is that I don't see my specific hardware listed, so how does one know what one has to turn on?

For example i'm looking at the sound drivers (under advanced linux sound architecture & oss), and I don't see nForce3 250Gb AC'97 Audio Controller listed anywhere.

And another example for the video card, under "graphics support" I see "ATI Radeon display support" as an option, but not specifically Radeon 9550]

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Accorn

 

 

 

Forgot to mention I'm using xconfig

 

moved from software by mystified

[scarecrow]

Stripping a kernel and removing all modules you will (probably) never need is politically correct... but:

Since those modules do not load at startup, unless you are using some "safe" configuration, all you'll gain is a slightly smaller kernel image, and nothing more than that.

Surely enough, finetuning your kernel if it is vanilla, or has few patches, is fairly straightforward, but finetuning a Mandriva kernel, where patches abound, is far away from being an easy case...

[Guest accorn]

Hi- I had downloaded the pure 2.6.18 source from kernel.org, and compiled it with all the defaults, with no patches, and my system still booted (and all devices appeared to work the same). There was some boot errors, I assumed because I had left some options installed not relevent to my system - so that's why I was trying to understand how to compile it with just relevent options to see if the

boot errors go away..

 

Like I mentioned I was doing this to learn really more then anything, just trying to get a good understanding of how linux works- and it looks like from what you saying there is no performance gain. So is there any reason people choose to compile a kernel themselves?

Is it not possible to install a patch free kernel on mandriva from what your saying?

Is the fact that I didn't add patches the reason I am not seeing some devices listed specifically?

 

Thanks