Re: Userland Kernel Download Tool

From: Horst von Brand (vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl)
Date: Sun Jan 16 2000 - 10:27:38 EST


"Matthew D. Pitts" <mpitts@xoommail.com> said:
> dg50@daimlerchrysler.com wrote:
> > Sitting on my /usr/src partition is a great big whalloping hunk of data -
> > the Linux kernel sources. Of that data, only a very small part of it is
> > actually used in the production of the kernel for my machine. Most of that
> > space is wasted.

> No argument from most of us here.

OTOH, it is convenient for the developers to have everything together in
one piece, not a collection of separate pieces that have to be kept in sync
and that cause problems because "I downloaded core-2.6.20 today, but i386
won't build anymore [or the kernel crashes, or screws up my filesystem, or
whatever]" (They just kept i386-2.6.3 as it "worked", and failed to update
some other pieces). Or you get a new piece of hardware, now you must get
some other pieces of the source.

Bottom line: If you are interested in development, you need the whole
tree. The current setup is optimized for the use of developers, not end
users who have no use for kernel sources. If not developing/looking at the
kernel, get your distribution's kernel. They did the work of cutting down
the source for you, and that is part of what you paid for.

This has been hashed to death a good many times to much already, look it up
in the archives of the list.

-- 
Horst von Brand                             vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl
Casilla 9G, Viņa del Mar, Chile                               +56 32 672616

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