[clue-tech] localyesconfig

[Jason Ash]

Hi,

I recently downloaded kernel 2.6.32.7 from kernel.org for my Gentoo
box. Starting with kernel 2.6.32, they have a new feature that allows
you automatically configure it to the hardware on your computer. The
two variations are localmodconfig which makes modules for your
hardware drivers, and localyesconfig, which builds it directly into
the kernel. I chose the latter which resulted in very few modules and
a much larger vmlinuz image. I also double-checked it with menuconfig,
and it got everything right except for drivers for my ATI radeon card,
and I chose to build support for ext4 file systems although I still
use ext3. I seems to boot faster. I wonder if the same can be done
with Ubuntu although it seems to have Ubuntu-specific stuff it its
kernel. Also, the current 9.10 kernel is only version 2.6.31 which
doesn't have this configuration feature yet. So, I guess I'll wait to
try it. This is neat because it helps configure the kernel specific to
the box it's on and gets rid of some bloat and unneeded drivers.

Jason