Mattew Rice asked for opinions on kernel compilation: Personally I think kernel compilation is a skill that is really only needed for people working at a distributor; not something system administrators do on a daily basis. If LPI really wants to go in-depth with kernel compilation, this would be a nice specialization topic for LPI-3. Distributors looking for new people then would have an easy selection criterium.
LPI-2 is (to my opinion) is aimed at system administrators USING linux in production environment. IT directors would like to hire LPI-2 people that understand why *NOT* to compile kernels in production. I can see a reason to have some conceptual knowledge about kernel compilation, but this should be strictly limited to concepts and the downsides of it. In a USAGE scenario there is harldy any need to compile kernels. Use alternatives like sysctl tuning, module loading an maybe dklm... As other have pointed out before: Almost all distributors have different recipies for building their kernel packges. I is impossible to ask potential sysadmin candidates to study even the quirks of one distributor. The concepts students should know: * The kernel compilation process is very hard. And if performed by non-experts will yield a worse performing kernel than a stock distributor kernel. * There is (in a production environment) hardly any need to compile kernels. All tuning can be done on-line using modules and sysctl. * kernel size is reduced by un-loading un-needed modules, not compiling less modules. * The "stock" linux kernel is platform independent. May (does) need adaptation (patches) for certain platform quirks to get a running kernel. * Distrubutor kernels incorporate many patches. * Basic steps of the process: Start menuconfig with a copy of a standard kernel. (It is very hard to start a kernel config from a blank file!) * make menuconfig. (Produces a config file that "configures" the kernel) * make (Builds the kernel and modules) * make modules-install (places modules in /lib/modules) * make install ( places files in /boot. Need to re-generate initrd) To sum up: The concepts of the kernel building process, the downsides, but not any "actual" command sequences or options. Kind regards, Reinier Kleipool Open Source Academy the Netherlands > How do people feel about having these sorts of things on the exams? > > In one sense, I like them because it "encourages" people to learn more > about > multiple distributions. > > In another sense, though, it could cause some panicky studiers (is that a > word?) to overstudy. > > In this case, though, prepare-all and cloneconfig are such minute parts of > this objective, I doubt that it would make a difference between pass and > fail for someone. > > Regards, > -- > g. matthew rice <[email protected]> starnix care, toronto, ontario, ca > phone: 647.722.5301 x242 gpg id: EF9AAD20 > http://www.starnix.com professional linux services & products > _______________________________________________ > lpi-examdev mailing list > [email protected] > http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev > > _______________________________________________ lpi-examdev mailing list [email protected] http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev
