I'm curious if anyone get's a real performance boost from the generic kernel over the huge kernel in Slackware 12? I know loading only the needed modules saves memory, but does it really matter in this case?

And what happened to the custom kernels like bare.i, sata.i, and scsi.s? Why were they removed in 12?

I don't think anybody would get a huge performance boost using generic instead of huge. It's not done for performance reasons, but mainly to keep things clean and in order. Also, you can experience some problems with udev when using huge. Nothing major, but still annoying.

I did a little test a few years ago on a debian box. I was having some trouble figuring out which module was correct for my network card. This was back when it wasn't always easy to get debian configured. I got a little angry and threw a geek tantrum. I recompiled my kernel, and enabled every damn thing I could. And I mean everything. This was on a modest box. 900Mhz cpu, 512mb of ram. Didn't notice a bit of difference. They both ran the same. I think back in the day it really mattered, but with modern hardware, I doubt you'd even notice the difference for the average desktop. I didn't anyway. But I use kde too, so obviously I don't need fine tuned performance. The average desktop has the memory and cpu cycles to spare....

Just my opinion. Good luck....

David

I don't know about the huge vs. generic. But huge vs. self compiled thin kernel, the thin kernel kicks huge's butt big time.

If you compile a new one for your architecture, then it will definitely be faster. The difference between huge and generic is much smaller, usually not noticeable or perhaps even existent. But, you'll have fewer issues with the generic kernel.