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i've been compiling and recompiling a 2.4.21 kernel for my computer for ~2 weeks and i'm really confused on some basic issues. by using a modified "guess and check" method of problem solving i've figured out what drivers i need for my sound card, ethernet and cd drives, but my more basic (and important) pieces of hardware are something of a mystery to me.
the GUI has been running much more slowly under the 2.4.21 kernels i've compiled than they do under the stock "bare.i" kernel for slack9. the way i see it, the computer should NOT run slower under a new kernel (esp. when i leave out a whole bunch of options).
for my hardware, i have a voodoo3 video card and a tyan s2466 mobo w/ 2 athlon 2200 mps.
my video card and processor specs seem to give me all sorts of problems. i don't have a very good idea of what options to compile into the kernel to specialize to my chip/mobo architecture, and the same goes for the video card and display options. it is this that i blame for the decreased performance that was mentioned above. for the sake of completeness, i'll list the relevant portions of my kernel config file:
#
# Processor type and features
#
# CONFIG_M386 is not set
# CONFIG_M486 is not set
# CONFIG_M586 is not set
# CONFIG_M586TSC is not set
# CONFIG_M586MMX is not set
# CONFIG_M686 is not set <--should i pick this one?
CONFIG_MPENTIUMIII=y
# CONFIG_MPENTIUM4 is not set
# CONFIG_MK6 is not set
# CONFIG_MK7 is not set
# CONFIG_MK8 is not set
# CONFIG_MELAN is not set
# CONFIG_MCRUSOE is not set
# CONFIG_MWINCHIPC6 is not set
# CONFIG_MWINCHIP2 is not set
# CONFIG_MWINCHIP3D is not set
# CONFIG_MCYRIXIII is not set
# CONFIG_MVIAC3_2 is not set
CONFIG_X86_WP_WORKS_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_INVLPG=y
CONFIG_X86_CMPXCHG=y
CONFIG_X86_XADD=y
CONFIG_X86_BSWAP=y
CONFIG_X86_POPAD_OK=y
# CONFIG_RWSEM_GENERIC_SPINLOCK is not set
CONFIG_RWSEM_XCHGADD_ALGORITHM=y
CONFIG_X86_L1_CACHE_SHIFT=5
CONFIG_X86_HAS_TSC=y
CONFIG_X86_GOOD_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_PGE=y
CONFIG_X86_USE_PPRO_CHECKSUM=y
CONFIG_X86_F00F_WORKS_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_MCE=y
# CONFIG_TOSHIBA is not set
# CONFIG_I8K is not set
# CONFIG_MICROCODE is not set
CONFIG_X86_MSR=y
# CONFIG_X86_CPUID is not set
CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM=y
# CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G is not set
# CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G is not set
# CONFIG_HIGHMEM is not set
# CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION is not set
CONFIG_MTRR=y
CONFIG_SMP=y
# CONFIG_X86_NUMA is not set
# CONFIG_X86_TSC_DISABLE is not set
CONFIG_X86_TSC=y
CONFIG_HAVE_DEC_LOCK=y
#
# General setup
#
CONFIG_NET=y
CONFIG_X86_IO_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC=y
CONFIG_PCI=y
# CONFIG_PCI_GOBIOS is not set
# CONFIG_PCI_GODIRECT is not set
CONFIG_PCI_GOANY=y
CONFIG_PCI_BIOS=y
CONFIG_PCI_DIRECT=y
# CONFIG_ISA is not set
CONFIG_PCI_NAMES=y
# CONFIG_EISA is not set
# CONFIG_MCA is not set
CONFIG_HOTPLUG=y
....
#
# IDE, ATA and ATAPI Block devices
#
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y
#
# Please see Documentation/ide.txt for help/info on IDE drives
#
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HD_IDE is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HD is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK=y
CONFIG_IDEDISK_MULTI_MODE=y
# CONFIG_IDEDISK_STROKE is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDETAPE is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEFLOPPY is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDESCSI=y
# CONFIG_IDE_TASK_IOCTL is not set
#
# IDE chipset support/bugfixes
#
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD640 is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC is not set
CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_OFFBOARD is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_FORCED is not set
CONFIG_IDEDMA_PCI_AUTO=y
# CONFIG_IDEDMA_ONLYDISK is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ADMA100 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_AEC62XX is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ALI15X3 is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_AMD74XX=y
# CONFIG_AMD74XX_OVERRIDE is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD64X is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_TRIFLEX is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CY82C693 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CS5530 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HPT34X is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HPT366 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NS87415 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PDC202XX_OLD is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PDC202XX_NEW is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RZ1000 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SC1200 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SVWKS is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIIMAGE is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIS5513 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SLC90E66 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_TRM290 is not set
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_VIA82CXXX is not set
CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO=y
# CONFIG_IDEDMA_IVB is not set
# CONFIG_DMA_NONPCI is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_MODES=y
....
#
# Ftape, the floppy tape device driver
#
# CONFIG_FTAPE is not set
CONFIG_AGP=y
CONFIG_AGP_INTEL=y
CONFIG_AGP_I810=y
CONFIG_AGP_VIA=y
CONFIG_AGP_AMD=y
# CONFIG_AGP_AMD_8151 is not set
CONFIG_AGP_SIS=y
CONFIG_AGP_ALI=y
# CONFIG_AGP_SWORKS is not set
CONFIG_DRM=y
# CONFIG_DRM_OLD is not set
#
# DRM 4.1 drivers
#
CONFIG_DRM_NEW=y
CONFIG_DRM_TDFX=y
# CONFIG_DRM_R128 is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_RADEON is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_I810 is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_I830 is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_MGA is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_SIS is not set
# CONFIG_MWAVE is not set
any suggestions for things i should change to get better performance?
additional question: how does the bzImage size of a kernel affect the way the computer runs? i would assume smaller kernel => quicker kernel...
the part of my system that gets slow is the GUI (i like pretty colors, so i run kde 3.1). before i made some fixes it was running real choppy (moving windows around was ugly).
i think i've fixed the issues i had previously by taking the config file for the bare.i kernel and modifying the portions that didn't have to do w/ video cards or frame buffers. i think i now have a kernel that works fine and is specialized to my architechture.
that said, i'm somewhat confused about video/GUI performance under linux. what's the deal w/ all the frame buffer options? how do i pick the right ones for my machine?
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