[seul-edu] In Need of the BIG Picture

[Robert Maynord <maynord@terracom.net>]

Dear SEUL Friends:

As per your suggestions, I have been exploring the process of compiling the
Linux kernal for use on my P90s at school. I have been using "make
menuconfig" to select what is to be included.  Just to see if I could make
a VERY small test kernal, I removed checks for 99% of the possible choices,
leaving only a very few items such as the Pentium chip, a cdrom, and the
floppy. No sound, alternate file systems, radio, or anything like that is
included.  After "make menuconfig", I use:

make clean
make dep
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install (which gives me a "target" error, presumably because I
have no modules checked in "make menuconfig".

The problem is, I end up with a kernal (vmlinux) that is 1082 K compared to
735 K for the original (Slackware) distribution kernal. The original
distribution kernal uses 16 MG ram after loading, and then needs the swap
drive.  I hate to think what my kernal would do!

This is one of those situations where I am obviously missing out on the BIG
picture.  The standard distribution kernals are supposed to be very
bloated.  How big should a "streamlined" kernal be?

I would very much appreciate any ideas...

Thanks!

Robert Maynord