OK, my new laptop now has Slackware 10.1 installed, compiled my own 2.6.10 kernel, the nvidia drivers work perfectly, and I finally figured out how to get the wireless card turned on. My next issue is the sound, which worked fine with the default 2.4 kernel on install, so I know it should work ok. It seems to me that I probably did something wrong in the .config for the 2.6.10 kernel, so I guess I need to do it again. But this time, I'd like to slim it down a bit, and optimize the kernel as much as I can, so I have a few questions:

How do I determine just what should be compiled into the kernel?
What benefit does leaving something as a module have?
Can I leave out half the stuff that make menuconfig gives me, since I'll never use them? (ie, support for other CPU's, monitors, wireless cards, etc.)

Basically, is there a posting or a website that has a good tutorial for figuring out what your kernel should include? I do have enough linux experience to have done things up to this point, but I don't know what half the stuff in the .config file is. Anyone have any ideas for me?

Thanks for all the help you guys give us n00b's.

as far as i know there's no central resource or website where you can find info on the config options. you just have to read carefully, choose wisely, and keep notes. and of course, recompile, recompile, recompile =)

as for sound, just make sure you include ALSA support, i usually do it as a module. leave OSS out. make sure /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa is executable, and run alsa_mixer and alsactl store. if those don't work, then more searching is required, and more details of the problem.

a couple useful tips as far as kernel compiling though:

you can check the config file directly, to see whether you included support for various things. either use emacs or another text editor to open the config file directly, or try something like this: cat .config | grep ALSA (be sure to man grep first, so you can pass it options like ignore-case, etc).

read the sticky threads at the top of this forum, they give some great advice.


finally, as far as including things as modules or built-in, i don't know. the advantage of a module is that you can load/unload it at will. so there are a bunch of things i built as modules that i don't actually use. be very careful though, because there are many things that you MUST build into the kernel itself, such as support for your / filesystem.


EDIT: oh and yes, you can leave out support for hardware you don't have

For Slackware 10.1 I used the kernel from kernel org and it works great.A good guide is Default kernel guide
And Slackware uses udev so make sure you do this
And for the sound I enable alsa "*" into the kernel and my card as a module "m"
And as already stated enable whatever file system,chipset,hard drive cd etc into "*" the kernel
and save at least one working kernel,sometime it take a few times to get it right,but once you do then save
your /usr/src/linux/.config and now when a new kernel come out,you can run make oldconfig.
I just do make menuconfig until I don't get any error messages and then stop.Also once I have a good kernel I
don't think much is gained with every new release,if it isn't broke awl you know.good luck

you can type 'make xconfig' in an xterm
then enable 'show all options' and 'show debug info' under options
you can read descriptions and get a little advice

if you leave something as a module, your kernel image will be smaller
also, some software looks specifically for certain modules and will not
work if it has been compiled into the kernel

as far as sound...
all you need in the kernel is:
Device Drivers>Sound>Sound card support=Y (built-in to kernel)

you can then d/l and install the most recent
version of ALSA manually for your kernel