Hi,

I'm about to build my first custom kernel.

I've read some documentation in order prepare myself to this thing.

The AlienBob's article being my primary source of documentation.

I've a few questions :

- How can I be sure that the kernel I'm building will have all the required drivers for my external devices ? e.g Xbox360 controller, USB 3.0 ports, Intel Wirelless + Bluetooth card...

Of course, I'm aware about the proprietary firmwares not being included in the Linux kernel.

- If I don't plan to use LVM or LUKS, should I build a "huge" kernel ?

I'm asking this question because the diff file that I've got from comparing the generic kernel config and the huge one doesn't report much differences between these two configs.

For example, I've seen that the NTFS Read/Write feature is disabled in generic.

Since I need to access NTFS partitions, I will have to change this line :

like that :

Is that correct ?

Thanks.

Never change the config directly, use "make menuconfig', press '/' to search.

Here is another useful article:
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla...git_repository

I recommend building most things as modules, except for things required in order to boot properly (listed in the above link).

The ntfs options in the kernel are for the old ntfs driver. You don't want to be using that, especially for r/w. Use ntfs-3g instead which runs outside the kernel via 'FUSE'.

Ensure that you have 'CONFIG_FUSE_FS=y'.

Also,

That doesn't indicate it was disabled. It means it was modularized. All this means, is if the computer needs the older ntfs support (not using ntfs-3g), it would need to load a module. Typically your answers would be y, m, or n (built into the kernel, modularized, not built respectively).

As others have mentioned, it is not recommended to change the .config directly, rather, move the .config into the root of the source directory and run make oldconfig and then run make menuconfig (or xconfig or whatever version you want). You can work through the categories they have to make sure all your required hardware is enabled. I wouldn't remove too much unless you know you don't need it, since removing an important item can result in a non-booting kernel. It's better to add things to the default Slackware kernel rather than take away until you are more familiar with the process.