Hi, On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:56:02AM -0600, Dale wrote: > Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > It would seem that configuring and building a kernel is an activity > > for experienced users, not beginners. ;-(
> Not really. It just takes practice. If you never build one, you will > never get the practice. ;-) ;-) I've built quite a few in my time as a Gentoo user, and one or two when I was still using Debian. Configuring a kernel is more difficult than the available documentation might lead one to believe. There are many hundreds of options to be considered, a large part of which are "irrelevant" (i.e. the kernel will work regardless of these options). Distinguishing the critical options from the irrelevant ones is difficult. Precisely such an error is what I made. Some options are relatively easy to set, for example, those under "drivers", where you select drivers for all the hardware you've got. But what about sections like "general setup"? Do I really need CONFIG_AUDIT? On reading the help, I shouldn't, but some program (can't remember which) complains if it's not there. What about "Checkpoint/restore support"? About what? Reading the help for each of these mysterious options is _hard work_. Normally, I can get through 'make menuconfig' in about an hour and a half, with the help of a checklist I wrote in June 2011. I can't remember how I managed when I was first installing Gentoo. > Dale > :-) :-) -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
