Linux Kernel Poll - Please Participate!

Did you know:

• Most distributions optimize their kernels using scheduler options intended for use on servers, not desktops. As such, generic kernels are not nearly as responsive under a typical desktop load as Linux potentially can be. This even includes your typical "p4" or "k7" optional kernel builds in your repos.
• The kernel from Kernel.org is always newer than the kernel shipped with mainstream distros, and as such, has more support for bleeding-edge and exotic hardware.
• Some of the newer, more exciting features of the Linux kernel, such as the new CFS scheduler, are not present in older builds of the Linux kernel.
• Most CPU optimizations are left out of generic kernels to maintain compatibility with a wide variety of architectures.

With the above in mind, I'm considering building a repository of custom kernels for a variety of architectures and distros, optimized for desktop usage and built from the latest vanilla kernel over at kernel.org. This poll is posted in an effort to find out a) what distros you are running and b) if there's any interest in getting custom kernels built for your architectures. I'll also be posting a follow-up poll about CPU architectures if this poll garners any interest.

Best regards,
-AT

 

I didn't really think using a vanilla kernel made a noticeable impact on performance.

 

Feisty

yes, i would be very interested, i have tried compiling a custom kernel but it all failed miserably & i decided it wold be easier to keep the generic

BTW: still can't use NVIDIA gfx drivers without my system freezing after about 5 minutes


i keep wanting to try to build custom kernel, but, when i start looking i am soon overwhelmed

:doh: , is it really as complicated as people on net say it is, or am i just thick ? :doh:[ot]LOL[/ot]

Edit: i just think that using a custom built kernel is beyond me, because i have brain damage

 

It's not really that hard, I used to do it with Mandrake a while back. But its not as easy to install the kernel now, mostly because of the ramdisk/initrd stuff a lot of newer distros seem to have. The actual configuring and compiling part isn't that hard though, just need to know what components you'll need to build into the kernel, e.g. fs drivers.

 

i think i'll try it in VMWare or VirtualBox first,

probably VirtualBox as there is no lag on my system

where do you think is a good place to start looking, so i don't jump in and drown ?

 

It's not the vanilla source that makes an impact on desktop responsiveness, it's the timer and scheduler options you build with. CPU-specific optimizations can also help out FPU-intensive IO operations quite a bit, though not as drastically as timer settings.

 

You know, I'm not that great at math but right now on the poll results I am seeing three for 33.3% and 3 for 16.7%. Ehhm... ? *starts counting on his fingers*

 

Apparently the poll code gets confused when you vote for multiple distros.

 

:agree: 3 values of 33.3% = 100% & add to that 3 values of 16.7% equals 150%, what a world

a bit of an understatment[ot]not picking fault though[/ot]

 

I usually use the distributor's kernel config as a baseline, then only tweak the parts that will help the most in terms of desktop performance and behavior. Get too far off the beaten path and you might end up breaking distro-specific things, after all. You can also make the kernel much less portable by compiling out too much.

 

From polls here and on a few other sites, the three distros which have garnered the highest interest:

1. Debian Lenny
2. Ubuntu Gutsy
3. Slackware

As a result, I'll be building kernels for the major architectures on these three distros. Right now I'm only building for the most popular subsets of x86, since they make up a vast portion of those that will be using them. However, it's not difficult to make non-x86 kernels as well, such as SPARC or PPC. If you need a kernel for one of the above distros on an unusual platform, PM me and I'll see what I can do for you.

I also got responses in the form of requests for just about every other distro out there, but our hosting resources are finite, as is my willingness to invest time in this, so we'll start with the above 3 for now. I was actually fairly surprised by a few of the requests, namely the first and the last in the list above, since they're both pretty geeky distros. Personally I completely expected Ubuntu to be the most requested by far, but Lenny actually had a few more requests than Gutsy. I even had some requests for Gentoo kernels, but I'm thinking that was more of a nerdy attempt at humor than genuine requests.

 

well i'd better upgrade my Feisty box to Gutsy[ot]fire up adept & press upgrade distro[/ot]

i've tried it but i have to admit i didn't even get it installed as a VM

i realize that PCC is another architecture like SPARC but google returns nothing about the PCC architecture, could you please briefly explain what it is ?

 

Well, Gentoo is a source based distro. So basically, since Gentoo users build *everything* from source. If Gentoo users are not comfortable building their own kernels, they are running the wrong distro.

It was supposed to be "PPC" as in PowerPC, the architecture that Apple used until it recently switched to Intel. :O Sorry, it was just a typo.

P.S. - I'm working out the details with sniper to get the kernel repo up on hardwareforums very soon. I'll post a sticky when we finalize things.

 

so, it's not for me then, yet[ot]hopefully it soon will be for me[/ot]

makes sense now, no wonder i couldn't find anything about PCC

:good: i thought i was missing out an entire architecture, but, i remember PPC

:good: can't wait :beer:

 

I've already built the Lenny kernels, and uploaded them to the HWF server. I'm in the process of building half-a-dozen kernels for Gutsy as I type this, and they should be cooked later today. Slackware will probably happen later in the week, since there was less demand for that than the other two, and the build process is *much* more manual on that distro which translates to more work for me. Guess I'll have to resurrect some old build scripts.

[ot]Strangely enough, building kernels for *Ubuntu Gutsy I noticed it was noticably slower than Debian Etch, Lenny, or Slackware on the same hardware. It takes longer to compile, and feels less responsive as well. Maybe it just doesn't like to run in a virtual machine, but it's interesting anyway.[/ot]

 

[ot]

[/ot]i'm not try to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but, which VM software are you using (probably to it's full extent, unlike me) but i've used VMware, VBox & Qemu. although, i haven't done much with Qenu, but i found VBox to have greater performance VMs even though i haven't installed grx drivers in any VM except in VMware

BTW: logging off & on again to make kernel sticky visible

 

I'm using VirtualBox, built from the official InnoTek repos, and compiled with the following cflags: -march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer

Everything else runs really fast, but ubuntu is noticeably slower for some reason. Maybe it's the famous ubuntu bloat, or maybe vbox and gutsy don't like eachother... who knows? If it runs a buttload faster after I load a custom kernel on the VM guest itself, I'll know it was just the ubuntu kernel.

 

wow, too much information

i'm still a mere mortal

blame M$, their responsible for almost everything else

i personally install vbox with package manager, i'm still not very comfortable compiling stuff from source as you know, but, i can & have compiled from source

 

I've built a Gentoo system from stage 3, and it's not too bad actually. Building from source is handled by portage, ebuild scripts and makefiles. But it is slow though, (installing software) as is updating the system. Personally I find using debian's package management system much more convenient even with the nice emerge.

 

i can & have compiled source & i will install gentoo on a VM but not yet, i'll wait until i'm more confident with CLI