building from kernel source rpm

[Joe Zeff]

On 11/28/2012 12:43 PM, JD wrote:
> I do know about these rpmbuild options, which, when turned off
> (--without xx)
> does shorten the build time. But it is not enough. Building bazillions
> of useless
> (with regards to the user's HW platform) driver, enabling features by
> default
> which the user might not want, is what I would like to have a way for
> the user
> to have the fine grained configuration ability.

Back in the Second Millennium, when I first started using Linux, the 
only way to update the kernel was to build your own.  As most people 
were still on dial-up, this was something you only did if you needed a 
new feature, or if your current kernel was rather outdated.

When I first started doing this, the text-mode configure script was 
fairly simple, and it was easy to know which features to include, which 
to make into modules and which to ignore.  By the time I moved from the 
old-style RedHat to FC 6, there were so many options that I'd never 
heard of that I was completely lost.  I can just imagine what it would 
be like today.

What would be nice would be something like the traditional ./configure 
that didn't just examine the build environment, but probed the hardware 
and included the drivers you needed and only those.  There would also be 
(I hope) a way to specify extra drivers, such as for a camera that's not 
always hooked up, plus a few questions about whatever other options are 
appropriate.  That way, you'd get a customized kernel with exactly what 
you need without having to be a hardware guru with a specialization in 
CPU chips.