nice. i liked reading this thread On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 9:11 AM, Rick Engebretson <eng at pinenet.com> wrote: > Again, more good suggestions. Lots to learn. Even 'modprobe' will tell all > the dependencies, etc. > > We digress. I never needed sound, cell phones, laptops, etc. But my wife > and 3 kids use it all, some now even make the stuff in China. They are > making new laws to keep people from driving and texting. > > Perhaps just the personality of an old guy that moved his then new family > out to the country for the "simple life." We watched way too many of the > old "Waltons" TV shows. All of a sudden I have up to 5 cars, tractors, > chain saws, tools, water, power, and just to keep the heat on in a blizzard > at 20 below is life itself. So I try to find simple and reliable. > > Once a pretty good math guy, even my dulled old brain can understand we > can't just keep adding to this system forever, as magnificent as it is. And > I know the old core unix model is there under a mountain of great > additions. I just think a lot of this new stuff can run in a separate box > with user software. Still "back to basics" here. > > Anyway, I'll get off the soapbox and again say thanks for some good help. > > > Clug wrote: > >> Clearly the kernel is loading a module for a feature of your card that >> you don't even know exists (: Chances are this causes negligable (if any) >> impact on your runnign system, but you can always unload the module (the >> command is 'rmmod') and you can prevent that module (or any others) from >> loading in the first place if you like by creating a file called >> "blockmodules.conf" (or anything .conf) in /etc/modprobe.d/ and saying >> >> blacklist module_name> >> >> in it. >> >> >> I still remember the days of downloading the latest kernel (3+ hour >> download over that 56K modem, and we were so happy about how fast that >> was!), untarring it and then going "make config", and being sooo happy when >> we could finally go "make menuconfig" or even "make xconfig" and going >> though ALL the options to see if support for anything new showed up. Then >> "make vmlinuz" and go to sleep, because that's how long that was going to >> take! >> >> To be honest, I haven't felt the need to build my own kernel in probably >> over a decade. Literally, over 10 years. The closest thing to that I've >> done was force my new laptop to use a 4.4 kernel rather than a 3.19 kernel, >> because the wireless adapter is only supported in 4.2+ kernels. But, again, >> that was readily available - wget && dpkg the new kernel, reboot, and It >> Just Works. >> >> The days when I was OK using an OS where I have to build everything (and >> I mean /everything/) myself are over. I don't have the time to build my own >> kernel, build my own GCC, build my own GIMP, build the nVidia module, >> building XORG's version of X Windows, build whatever window manager you >> like, build Firefox, etc, etc. Nowadays it's install Ubuntu (or mint or >> whatever) and beat it up a little bit so it works the way I want. I don't >> care if some of the (I just checked) 131 modules it loads are not actually >> used. As long as everything works and is responsive, it's all good. >> >> >> >> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote: >> >> Good suggestion doing 'lsmod.' One of the goofy modules I didn't >>> understand and deleted from the new configuration file was "matrox_w1" -- >>> something about my MatroxG400 video card having "Dallas 1 wire master >>> control." Huh?? Well there it was, in lsmod, loaded for what I still don't >>> know. >>> >>> But your suggestion will help a lot. The last time I recompiled a kernel >>> was SuSE 9.2, still a 2.6 kernel (??). And it had a nasty bug in the serial >>> port driver that, when setserial was used, would disable the FIFO and not >>> re-enable it as expected. By the time I patched and "cleaned up" that >>> kernel I lost USB. So I can already see I'm headed in the same direction. >>> >>> Thanks. >>> >>> Clug wrote: >>> >>>> The drivers you are talking about probably don't belong in every kernel >>>> - and kernels including them date back to about the same timeframe. >>>> >>>> The Linux kernel has supported modules since the late '90s, and it's >>>> been practially seemelss for over a decade. Kernels that come with >>>> distribtions contain these drivers AS MODULES. They are NOT loaded into the >>>> kernel unless they are needed. Very few drivers are actally built into the >>>> kernel nowadays. >>>> >>>> Type 'lsmod' in a terminal window, and see the long, ong list of >>>> modules that are loaded automatically. I just did that on one of my >>>> machines, and there are about 80. 80! None of them are built into the >>>> kenrel. They are loaded as needed. >>>> >>>> Those precompiled modules are, again, separate. They may take up >>>> diskspace, but we're talking about a few hundred megabytes. That's not the >>>> kind of diskspace a modern system is even going to notice. It is absolutely >>>> not impacting memory or performance, either. >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote: >>>> >>>> Thanks for your reply. >>>>> >>>>> Perhaps you are right. I really don't have one good answer, but am >>>>> confused and interested in learning. >>>>> >>>>> Many of the driver modules for things like SCSI and Sound cards I >>>>> remember go way back to ISA bus cards. I doubt you could find many of these >>>>> cards if you tried. Hundreds of them that don't seem to belong in the same >>>>> kernel source as high performance systems. In my downloaded pre-compiled >>>>> kernel the ancient driver modules are included and litter up both the >>>>> configuration file and library directory. An ancient hardware platform >>>>> deserves the ancient kernel. >>>>> >>>>> I realize the PC desktop platform is obsolete to many users. And all >>>>> the laptop features, etc., etc., are new to me. But I'm surprised by all >>>>> the support for embedded, GPIO, and many things I've barely heard of. One >>>>> of the pre-compiled driver modules (GPS) for serial port even used the >>>>> carrier detect as a pulse clock. >>>>> >>>>> I guess what I'm trying to do is a standard master/slave control >>>>> system over a standard RS232 link, exploiting standard ATX power supplies >>>>> on both ends. >>>>> >>>>> I have an 84 year old farmer friend who likes Ubuntu on his laptops, >>>>> mails pictures of his very old car rebuilding projects. He likes old cars >>>>> because they're fixable. I would like to think I can still do things with a >>>>> PC. >>>>> >>>>> Clug wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Aren't al kernels nowadays pretty much 100% module-based? Which means >>>>>> you can't really get them to be simpler, as such? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm trying to compile a linux kernel that is simpler than the >>>>>>> distribution version (using old opensuse 12.2 on an intel p4 mobo). I'm >>>>>>> able to use the tools and documentation, and have compiled and installed >>>>>>> some variant of the default opensuse download. However, I didn't get it to >>>>>>> run the simple standard PC. It seems the grub2 bootloader is another >>>>>>> learning process. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I did this years ago on simpler pentium machines with lilo >>>>>>> bootloader. But going through all the new configuration options and actual >>>>>>> compilation literally takes days. From what I can understand, the "vanilla" >>>>>>> linux kernel now supports technology I didn't know existed. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm not sure I know how to get back to basic computing anymore. Just >>>>>>> wondering if others have tried and succeeded slimming the kernel down, and >>>>>>> any tips?? >>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>>>>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>>>>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>>>>>> >>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>>>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>>>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> >> > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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