On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Enrique Zanardi wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 1998 at 09:41:03AM -0400, Dale Scheetz wrote: > > The problem is that the Debian installation kernel tries to be all things > > to all people. As there are machines that boot from SCSI drives, it was > > necessary to have all the scsi controlers "built in" to the kernel, hense > > its large size. > > > > We should recommend that everyone, once they have a standard system and > > can build a kernel, should build a custom kernel for their machine as > > early as possible. > > > > Another solution is the one that slackware provides. They build a "bunch" > > of kernels, each one for a specific hardware configuration (broad enought > > to cover a range of hardware, and chosen to keep incopatibly drivers out > > of the picture {like the wd9000 driver that plonks ethernet cards}) > > I'm working on a better solution that involves using initrd to > load the required controllers (built as loadable modules). I've tested > using initrd for lowmem installations and it works flawlessly (just have > a look at lowmem boot disk in boot-floppies_2.0.7 when I upload it next > weekend).
I have wondered why we didn't try this once the kernel supported initrd. To be honest I haven't figured out yet how to do the device selection, other than going through a list of drivers, trying to insmod each one until you are successful. I would love to see your solution for this, even in whatever the current state is. > > Using initrd, our default kernel may be reduced to half its current size, > as all those different controllers may be built as modules and only the > required ones will be loaded at boot time. That will save our users a few > hundred KBs of RAM, and will make building a custom kernel a not so > needed step. > Yes, this would be a great improvement over the current situation, making the installation kernel appropriate for a system kernel with no rebuilding. > When I have a "proof-of-concept" implementation, I plan to discuss the > details with Herbert Xu, our kernel maintainer, to see if we can adopt > this solution for slink. > This is wonderful Enrique, thanks for all your fine work on this package! I look forward to seeing this, Dwarf -- _-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_- aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (850) 656-9769 Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL 32308 _-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]