RE: stuff that goes into GENERIC

[eric jackson <shinobi@monkey.org>]

On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Peter Kocks wrote:

> > 
> > I'm glad you know how to compile your own kernel, but most people should
> > not need to know how.
> >
> 
> I'm in that stage where I know how to recompile the kernel (and /usr land)
> in order to make a new system, but I don't know whether or not I need stuff
> like NULLFS or KMEMSTATS etc.  Since my primary use of OpenBSD is for
> creating a firewalls, routers, kerberos authentication boxes, etc I don't
> need, nor want all the extras.  I'd prefer a simpler and hopefully more
> secure and stable system.  That is, in fact, precisely why I'm in the OpenBSD
> camp in first place (as opposed to FreeBSD or linux).
> 
> To me the following things would be helpful (and maybe they exist, but I don't
> know where)
> 
> 1) A kernel config for a minimal system.  Call it something like MINIMUM, so
> that I can just build the system using that one instead of GENERIC.
> 
> 2) or perhaps simply adding some more comments to the GENERIC kernel description
> that highlights what is necessary and what is not.  I see the descriptions of the
> options in GENERIC, but sometimes I just don't know whether I need the stuff
> or not.  E.g.  PCIVERBOSE  (most of my hardware does use PCI, but does that
> mean I need PCIVERBOSE?)

Well first off you can man options. This has a pretty good list of popular
options used in the kernel. PCIVERBOSE just gives more verbose output on
boot for pci devices.

> 
> 3) Some basic documentation about what all those kernel config files are meant
> to be used for.  E.g.  What's the LUCIFER kernel?  Is that one of the development
> teams custom kernels?  A simple README in the directory should suffice.  The
> README file should definitely have a not about rebuilding userland, since
> that is a mistake I made once and I've read a couple of times on this e-mail
> list that others have made the same mistake.
> 

Im not sure about LUCIFER but most of the others have an explaination of
what kind of system that kernel was built for.

> 
> BTW, I'm still on 2.4, if things have changed in 2.5 sorry if this is no longer
> relevant...
> 
> My 2 cents
> --pk
> 

				Eric Jackson