[Tfug] linux no longer for amateurs

[Bexley Hall]

> Debian's kernel-package package, for example, makes the building and
> management of kernel sources pretty trivial.  Probably the most
> difficult thing for the novice is learning what different kernel
> config options do.  Second is learning how to properly name the
> resulting deb.  Knowing the proper names for drivers (which I think
> Bexley was complaining about on BSD), tends not to be too bad.

If you know what chipset your {NIC,HBA,USB,etc.} uses, it is easy
to find the right driver in *BSD.  But, if you just install on
a generic machine and want to prune the *BSD kernel down so that
it doesn't include unneeded drivers, you either have to examine
the hardware (or documentation for it) *or*, boot a GENERIC kernel
and watch the various probe()'s to see which devices were found
*in* your hardware (i.e., examine dmesg output or /var/log/messages).

I build a new kernel by taking a copy of dmesg and the config
file for the kernel that I booted (GENERIC, INSTALL, etc.) and
just delete all devices that were not found in my machine.

The USB devices are more problematic as I may end up plugging
one of them in at a later date so I tend to err on the side of
keeping all of them in the kernel.

I *think* it may still be possible to get NetBSD running on a 5MB
386 machine by careful pruning.  If you limit what you want that
machine to be able to *do*, you could probably go smaller than
that.  (I think FreeBSD long ago abandoned the small footprint
approach in favor of added bloatware   :< )

Even at 5MB, that's an order of magnitude more than I like to
"spend" on many of my projects  :<  Getting a whole system
into a single chip saves a helluvalot of cost, power, space, etc.
E.g., the network LINK + SPEED LED indicators that I was discussing
in another thread consume as much power as the CPU in my audio
client (and the CPU includes the RAM and ROM/FLASH and other
I/O's).