On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 10:13:01PM +0200, Russell Coker wrote: > So a 386 compiled kernel can still support MMX, 3DNow! and MTRR? In that > case we only need a 386 kernel, but it might be nice to have a PentiumMMX > compiled kernel as well (that should give better performance on all brands of > CPU that are better than 486).
Except that the PentiumMMX kernel won't run on a Pentium -- it uses MMX instructions for memcpy(). (I now ramble into things I only slightly remember, so please check before believing...) I think the general consensus is that the original Pentium instruction ordering is best all-around, whereas PentiumPro is the worst. > I am thinking of the various IDE options for dealing with broken drives and > controllers, PCI Quirks, etc. These things will break some machines when set > one way and break other machines on the other setting. I haven't heard of many problems like this recently. But I'm sure there will be such bugs during the lifetime of 2.4. > So we ship half the kernel as binary and compile the other half after > installation? Sounds terrible. Why not just compile custom kernels for > every user? (Yes, that doesn sound terrible.) No, I meant to ship and install one standard complete kernel. If the user wants to run the automatic kernel optimisation script and compile a new kernel, cool. But the idea is to make it as simple as "Do you want an optimized kernel?" > It wouldn't be that difficult to write a script that asks a dozen easy > questions, checks the /proc data, and then compiles an optimised kernel. I tend to think that asking fewer questions is better -- a script will better know how to optimise the kernel for someone that is unprepared. And the people that want more configuration options should be compiling their own kernels anyway. dave...
