[CentOS] Kernel building

[Sam Drinkard]

Les, is there any performance hit by using the stock kernel?  One reason 
I ask, is the application that hopefully will be running if we can get 
the compile done is very number-crunching intensive.  In fact, that is 
about all it does do aside from generating a few files.  Altho I've got 
more than adequate horsepower to handle the job, I was just curious if 
there were any "standard reasons" to either build or not build.  As for 
file sizes, no problem on space.  I see from the bit I've looked around 
at the filesystem the kernal is not too large as it is, but of course, I 
don't know what the vsize is at runtime either.  I know there is a lot 
of reading material in the man pages, and other sources too, but to get 
some more generalized info to start with is my goal. 



Les Mikesell wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-09-22 at 09:52, Sam Drinkard wrote:
>  
>
>>I have not even decided if I want to undertake a kernel build, but for 
>>the sake of discussion, if everything happens to be in the stock kernel, 
>>why, other than file bloat, would you want to build a custom kernel?  In 
>>FreeBSD, you can remove all those devices and drivers that are not 
>>needed, and, depending on how much stuff you add or delete, can make a 
>>decent size reduction in the kernel itself.  I'm not smart enough to 
>>know if there is a performance trade-off with a whole bunch of unneeded 
>>modules or drivers in the kernel, but perhaps common sense tells me that 
>>there must be some kind of performance hit otherwise.
>>    
>>
>
>Nearly all drivers are built as modules which have no effect on the
>kernel if you don't load them.  If the disk space used by the module
>bothers you, you can remove the unused ones.  The main downside to
>building them all is the time it takes to compile a kernel which most
>people don't need to do.
>
>  
>

-- 
Snowman