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-   -   Where to find kernel options? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/where-to-find-kernel-options-854818/)

Mr. Alex 01-07-2011 06:58 AM
Where to find kernel options?
 
Code:
zcat /proc/config.gz
How do I know what option means what to compile my own kernel? How to find support for different hardware in this mess (and exclude it)?

markush 01-07-2011 07:10 AM
When your're configuring your kernel, you'll find detailed information within the configuration-menu. I prefer "make xconfig" which provides a very clear overview.

Markus

druuna 01-07-2011 07:22 AM
Hi,
Quote:
How do I know what option means what to compile my own kernel? How to find support for different hardware in this mess (and exclude it)?
Inside the kernel source directory there's a Documentation directory with loads of info about all the options.

Hope this helps.

onebuck 01-07-2011 08:08 AM
Hi,

Not just 'proc' hardware information but you should have the documented information for the hardware.
You could use 'lspci','dmidecode' or even 'lshw' if installed then you can garnish as much detailed information as possible to aid in configuring your kernel.

Quote:
lspci is a utility for displaying information about PCI buses in the system and devices connected to them.

By default, it shows a brief list of devices. Use the options described below to request either a more verbose
output or output intended for parsing by other programs.

If you are going to report bugs in PCI device drivers or in lspci itself, please include output of "lspci -vvx"
or even better "lspci -vvxxx" (however, see below for possible caveats).

Some parts of the output, especially in the highly verbose modes, are probably intelligible only to experienced
PCI hackers. For exact definitions of the fields, please consult either the PCI specifications or the header.h
and /usr/include/linux/pci.h include files.
Quote:
dmidecode is a tool for dumping a computer's DMI (some say SMBIOS) table contents in a human-readable format.
This table contains a description of the system's hardware components, as well as other useful pieces of infor-
mation such as serial numbers and BIOS revision. Thanks to this table, you can retrieve this information without
having to probe for the actual hardware. While this is a good point in terms of report speed and safeness, this
also makes the presented information possibly unreliable.

The DMI table doesn't only describe what the system is currently made of, it also can report the possible evolu-
tions (such as the fastest supported CPU or the maximal amount of memory supported).

SMBIOS stands for System Management BIOS, while DMI stands for Desktop Management Interface. Both standards are
tightly related and developed by the DMTF (Desktop Management Task Force).
Quote:
lshw is a small tool to extract detailed information on the hardware configuration of the machine. It can report exact memory configuration, firmware version, mainboard configuration, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, etc. on DMI-capable x86 or IA-64 systems and on some PowerPC machines (PowerMac G4 is known to work).
It currently supports DMI (x86 and IA-64 only), OpenFirmware device tree (PowerPC only), PCI/AGP, CPUID (x86), IDE/ATA/ATAPI, PCMCIA (only tested on x86), SCSI and USB.
You can control each command via options, so 'man command'. Notice the utility of dmidecode & lshw.

Don't forget the manufacture hardware information documents that are available for a user.

You can even use your 'dmesg' for information to show things as recognized & configured for a working kernel. 'proc' is great but I also like to use other commands to aid in setting things up for the '.config' for a kernel.
:hattip:


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