generic or huge kernels?
 

For first...I'm not making this topic to flame, I'm making this topic because I've seen many topics where people flamed to choose these kernels, now...Which kernel is most used between *generic and *huge? For first I give my personal opinion:

Actually I use the generic kernel for two reasons:

-Pat suggests it.
-It's slim.

but I've always used the huge kernel. Now, in the using of the generic kernel I had to type one command to make the "initrd.gz" and I had to edit the lilo.conf(the guide is wrote in the /boot/README.initrd). No,w it works perfectly. Now the question is:

"Which kernel do you use"? "Why do you use it?"

I use the generic. I was under the impression the 'huge' kernel was only intended as a bootstrap kernel and isn't recommended for normal use.

Hi,

I thought the suggestion was to use hugesmp kernel. This is the one I use.
In the begginning, when I first installed slackware, I used the generic kernel...by accident. I am using the GRUB from another distro to boot the various OSes so I added an entry there for slackware and since I did not know at the beggining which kernel to use I just picked up generic. But then I think I read somewhere that it is the hugesmp that is recommended so I changed it. Nevertheless I am not noticing any difference till now, or the use I am making of my system does not reveal any difference.

You are correct sir :)

mRgOBLIN

As a Slackware contributor, perhaps you could explain why you should not use the hugesmp kernel as, after all is said and done, it does work on a day to day basis.

samac

I compile my own kernel, based on the config from the generic-smp kernel supplied by Slackware.
I build in some modules so I don't need an 'initrd' and change some parameters needed for my hardware.

But basically it is the generic kernel with some fine-tuning in the configuration.

Hi,

I prefer to use 'PV's' definition;

To date I have not had any issues that would require the use of the installer kernels other than as a recovery kernel with the install cd.

Generic, because I sometimes do as I am told.

I used to compile my own kernels, but have started using the stock kernels instead. It is just too easy to copy a kernel from one machine to another, without worrying about how it was customized. I'm currently using four machines on this network & have the same kernels on all four. I have both huge & generic kernels installed (in case I need to boot from the huge one after one of my "mistakes"), have gotten rid of the "vmlinuz" link & use "huge" & "generic" links instead. So, I don't have to remember the exact kernel name. It's easy enough to modify the stock generic kernel to contain your filesystem drivers, so that an initrd will not be necessary, but I have modified the mkinitrd package so that I can boot with "root=LABEL=whatever" or "root=UUID=whatever" & that requires an initrd anyway, so I just leave the kernel alone.
Regards,
Bill

I leave the "vmlinuz" link alone, as it always comes back after an update of the kernel from -current or a new release.

The generic and -custom (compiled kernel) I add to the lilo menu, with the -custom as a default. The huge kernel stays there, in case I mess up something, so I don't need to find a bootable CD.

As others have said - I always use generic because the Slackware creator says to - never had any problems.

Again - always leave a boot option for hugesmp.s in case of problems creating initrd or whatever.

Yes, once you're sure everything works OK. Like this:

I'm still at a loss. PV says that we should use the generic kernel, but it seems that we have to take this on faith, why should we not use the hugesmp.s kernel?

Just to clarify, I am using the generic kernel, I would just like to know for curiosities sake.

samac

One reason I can think of: troubleshooting.

The huge kernel loads about everything in memory - many things you'll never use. If anything goes wrong (panic, oops), it will be (more) difficult to say why.

Yes - to me it makes more sense to load modules as and when needed,(in theory), rather than have the world built into and loaded from one monolithic kernel. The monolithic may be beneficial to get the majority of machines going but unnecessary for daily use.

I have a new install, and new to Slackware....is there a current guide somewhere to tell me how to install a generic kernel? I think I'm at the point now I'd to tackle that one...:D thanks

Get this script and run it, it will give you a suitable command to run to create an .initrd:

http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tool...d_generator.sh

Then edit your lilo.conf (example in my earlier post), run lilo, and that's it. Pretty easy.

here is my uname -a output...am I already using a generic kernel?

bash-3.1$ uname -r
2.6.27.7-smp
bash-3.1$ uname -a
Linux m4400 2.6.27.7-smp #2 SMP Thu Nov 20 22:32:43 CST 2008 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9600 @ 2.80GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
bash-3.1$

You will not automatically be running the generic kernel. Besides - you have to create an initial ram disk and rerun lilo (after having edited /etc/lilo.conf). There is instructions in /boot/README.initrd to help creating the initrd. Plus there's been instructions in this thread. Personally I think the main thing is to keep the huge kernel in case something goes wrong.

On my last laptop I did what was recommended and switched to the generic kernel after the install was completed.

On my current laptop I'm still running with huge. Why? Because I completely forgot to make the switch!!!

But, like samac I am wondering if there's a compelling reason for me to switch to the generic one given that I've had many happy months of intensive day-to-day use with the huge kernel.

Doesn't PV say that there's no real reason why you can't use huge day-to-day?

Apparently there's no real need to switch to the generic kernel. From ANNOUNCE.12_2:

Exactly as I do. Install the huge-smp kernel, compile my own as -$CPU. I maintain a universal config for all of our machines. Luckily they are all Intel chipsets, and only 3 AMD/nVidia combos. This makes it easy to just change the CPU type from K8 to Core2, to PIII, what ever, and tick the correct libata option from module to built in.


The huge kernel has everything compiled in. On our AMD/nVidia systems, the huge kernel is using both libata and the older IDE/PATA drivers. This has caused issues for me between the IDE bus, add on Promise IDE cards, and SATA bus. Not errors, just confusion.

Other people have reported issues with their add in SCSI cards. If certain drivers are loaded they will conflict.

The huge kernel also takes quite a bit longer to load ;)

If you don't have module conflicts with your hardware, and don't mind the slightly longer load times, the huge kernels can still be used.

Could this be why my asus eee pc 1000h's 160gb sata disk shows up as hda instead of sda unless I add append=" hda=noprobe" in lilo.conf?

If so, looks like I may have a good reason to switch to generic :)

It was mostly out of sheer laziness is why I kept using the huge kernels for so long, until about a year ago when I decided to finally switch. Since then I noticed an improvement in performance on my ancient AMD desktop. Faster boot ups, and less memory usage.

I get a permission denied running that script...wonder why? probably me :) thanks edit: I tried to run it as root. I'm a newb...you're probably gonna need to spell it out for me if you could be so kind...I'm trying to switch kernels, and have no clue. I think that huge kernel is hosing my usb in VB somehow with some usb devices working, some not.

Maybe I'd better start a new thread....thanks

See your new thread.