Monique Y. Mudama wrote: > I roll my own because, um ... because ... > > Well, I do it because I've been doing it for years, so it's not > intimidating to me. I do it because I think it's interesting to see all > of the options and read up on the ones that pique my curiosity. I do it > because it offends my sensibilities to keep around tons of modules that > I'll never, ever, use. I do it because I feel like it keeps me more in > touch with what my computer's doing. I do it because I love screwing it > up and seeing LI LI LI LI scroll across my screen *grin* > > Is there a tangible advantage? Well, it's possible that a module > sitting around unused might have a vulnerability ... but if your cracker > is already to the point where they can load modules, you're probably > hosed, anyway. > > Unless you're working with very tight resources, I'm not aware of a real > advantage. Anyone? > > I would have thought everything you need should be in the stock kernel, > too, but I don't use them, so I don't know.
One real reason is if your machine uses a CPU that is not optimised for in the stock Debian kernels. This includes the Crusoe and the 486. This is why I build customised kernels for my laptop and router. Another is that by building a stock kernel you can avoid needing an initrd to boot. Initrds are an extra level of complexity, and thus something else that can break. This is why I build my own kernel for my co-located server. Yet anther reason would be if you didn't like some of the patches included in the Debian kernel and wanted the vanilla unpatched kernel. Happily, Debian is rather conservative about patching the kernel. If you need to build third party modules, it can be kind of hard to figure out how to do that using the stock debian kernels; it's different from how it's done if you have a kernel tree that was used to build your kernel. The little-known module-assistant package actually makes building such modules quite easy though. Of course another reason might be because you want a newer kernel than has been packaged, or you want to use one of the other kernel tree's than linuses kernel, or you want to learn, or have some kernel patch of your own. I think that covers all the legitimate reasons. I've gradually been moving away from building custom kernels for most of my machines, unless I have a specific reason to do so. -- see shy jo
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