[techtalk] modules and xconfig

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

On Sun, Dec 19, 1999 at 09:50:44PM -0500, Jeff Dike wrote:
> > Obviously you would select n for items that you don't need included in
> > your kernel, but what is the difference in saying y to support for my
> > scsi or m?
> 
> For the average user, it doesn't make any difference.  You need to say 'y' to 
> anything that you need to boot the kernel (so if you're booting off a scsi 
> device, 'm' for scsi would be a bad choice).

On the whole, I agree with this. There is, however, one case where modules are
necessary for an "average" system (whatever that is): on one of my machines, I
have a reasonably old parallel port. Since I used to use PLIP to connect my
laptop to that machine, I needed to compile both the plip and lpr portions of
the kernel as modules (since only one could use the parallel port at a time).

Modules are also very useful in making highly generalised kernels (that will
run on many machines in a lab) or in making a bootdisk -- but both of those
applications fall outside the scope of the original question, I guess.

> 
> People who want their machines to run fast would look at what subsystems they 
> use fairly constantly and build them in, so they so get unloaded after a bit 
                                                  ^^^^
                          I assume you mean ---> do not
> of inactivity, only to be reloaded a second later when something wakes them
> up.

Cheers,
Malcolm Tredinnick

--
Honk if you love peace and quiet!


************
techtalk at linuxchix.org   http://www.linuxchix.org