2.6.23 kernel

[Ed Greshko]

John Summerfield wrote:

>> As soon as the systems were up I checked top and lsmod.  Now, this wasn't
>> entirely one-to-one since on my F8 install I did use LVM while I
>> didn't on
>> the slackware.  Also, slackware is at 2.6.21.5 while F8 is 2.6.23.0.
> 
> That should advantage Slack.

How so?

>> F8 loaded a total of 60 modules
>> Slackware loaded     38 modules
>>
>> The /lib/modules of F8 was 57MB while slackware is 52MB.
>>
>> Now, the really interesting thing was that top showed F8 to be using
>> 147.9MB
>> out of 512MB while slackware was consuming 179.4MB.
>>
>> I find that interesting.....
> 
> You should also include the kernel size. I was amazed when i first used
> debian to find the bare kernel didn't support my IDE hardware: the IDE
> drivers were modules.

That doesn't really surprise me.

> If you still have both, find how many modules each has under
> /lib/modules. And, if you still haven't got a life, see if you can pick
> the differences: one might, for example, have madwifi even though the
> HAL is binary-only.

I think I may have just enough of a life not to care that much about it.  I
was going to look at the config files to see what slackware may be builing
in as opposed to using modules.  But, that would take time and would only
end up being a waste since I'm not going to be using slackware.

> Part of the requirement of any commercial distro is that it must support
> all likely hardware. That's constrained, in part, by attitudes to lack
> of source: Debian hacks stuff out of the kernel because some is not
> DFSG-free.

And it should not be an erector set.