[CLUE-Tech] Which RedHat SMP Version

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Thu, 2003-06-19 at 09:47, Adam Bultman wrote:

*snip*

> I've always been a big fan of building my own kernels.  I never use RPMs 
> (unless forced to).  It helps you gain quite the understanding of how 
> things work, and it's fun, too. Go to ftp.kernel.org and grab the newest 
> 2.4 source.

Note that if you go with the generic kernel, you won't have the
advantages of any patches and such that Red Hat has made to the kernel.
Red Hat doesn't provide a stock kernel, they add patches to support
newer features and hardware and so forth. You might find, for example,
that a stock kernel from kernel.org may not support a particular
wireless card or whatever, while Red Hat's kernel will have patches for
it.

You can grab a source RPM from Red Hat and compile a kernel that way
instead. 

> Anyway, I'd recommmend compiling your own kernel. It's good experience.  
> RH, while being easy to use, completely removes your ability to understand 
> WHY things are done.  "Hmm.. I have this module here. I need to insert it 
> into the kernel, but I don't konw how, or why, or where."  I weaned off of 
> red hat for that very reason.  It's harder, but if something breaks, you 
> aren't left with a question mark above your head.

Or he might be left with a number of question marks. I'm all for
compiling a kernel from scratch, when someone has gotten to that level
of proficiency. It requires quite a bit of troubleshooting knowledge to
recover if you make an error installing a new kernel, and might be
fairly frustrating to folks who are just getting acclimated to Linux. 

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net