I've been compiling and deploying kernels since 0.99 days, and I still get bit
by this sort of thing. This is one of the reasons why I've liked the minimal
config option that Rob Landley has proposed a few times wher eyou specify the
things that you need and let the build system put in the nessasary dependancies.
I started out useing menuconfig, used the TCL based xconfig, but went back to
menuconfig when the new xconfig came out (I now do most of my kernel compiles on
remote machines that I may or may not have X access to anyway)
especially if a particular driver/feature doesn't want to compile, tracking down
how to turn it off can be a pain. The idea that Alan posted of saying 'disabling
this function will disable the following things as well' would be an extremely
useful enhancement.
I think that there are more of us out here that configure and compile kernels,
but aren't kernel hackers then most people (especialy the distros) want to
admit. (and for that matter, many of the distro support policies activly
discourage people from telling the distro when they compile a kernel)
David Lang
-
