[wplug] I'm a Linux whimp (need kernel help)

[Vanco, Don]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org 
>[mailto:wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org] On 
>Behalf Of Chester R. Hosey
>Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 10:27 AM
>To: General user list
>Subject: RE: [wplug] I'm a Linux whimp (need kernel help)
>
>
>On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 10:03 -0400, Poyner, Brandon wrote: 
>> > You did bring up a good point, though -- it's a great (!) idea to
>> > enable /proc/config[.gz] while configuring your kernel. If 
>you end up
>> > losing the configuration for a bootable kernel, you can 
>still retrieve
>> > it later if needed. I believe that there's even a script to 
>> > extract this
>> > information from a non-running kernel if you built it with 
>> > /proc/config
>> > support.
>> 
>> RedHat thinks it's "stupid" [1] to put the config inside of 
>the kernel,
>> and has it turned off by default.  Their argument is that there is no
>> advantage over a file in /boot, and the disadvantage is 
>increased memory
>> usage.  Hah, RedHat against bloat?  Yes, I use many RedHat 
>products, but
>> I wouldn't say bloat is a big concern of theirs.
>> 
>> As for extracting the config from a non-running kernel, use
>> scripts/extract-ikconfig from the kernel source directory.  This only
>> works if IKCONFIG was enabled, and /proc/config.gz only exists if
>> IKCONFIG_PROC was enabled.
>> 
>> [1] "its done this way because the other way is _stupid_"  Dave Jones
>> <davej @ redhat . com>
>
>I get the impression that Red Hat's position is that you shouldn't be
>using a kernel other than theirs anyways. You should install their
>package and be happy about it.
	Not as much Red Hat as the ISVs (although arguably no one tests
an Enterprise-designed kernel like RH).  Case in point, Oracle checks
for kernel checksum when requesting support in some cases.  
	If you can't grasp the logic behind this type of mandated
package use there's likely little point in you running RHEL.

> I agree with your comments regarding
>Red Hat bloatware -- rhnsd takes a whopping 6 megabytes of RAM and as
>far as I can tell all it does it periodically execute rhn_check (heaven
>forbid it include some form of useful failure logging).
	If this is true there is something decidedly wrong with your
box.  On a functional system it's barely a blip on the radar.  Once
again, if you can't understand / appreciate what the RHN daemon is all
aboot you likely don't need to be running RHEL.  Also note - it's not a
required package - just pull it.


Don