From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Dec 19 23:33:11 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97D10106566C for ; Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:33:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (unknown [IPv6:2001:470:1f09:679::1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 625C48FC13 for ; Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:33:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from unknown (client-86-29-43-113.glfd.adsl.virginmedia.com [86.29.43.113]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id AC43381B1; Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:33:17 +0000 (UTC) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:33:14 +0000 From: Bruce Cran To: "illoai@gmail.com" Message-ID: <20091219233314.000067f7@unknown> In-Reply-To: References: <20091219161309.GA57855@bsdbox.koderize.com> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.2cvs27 (GTK+ 2.16.0; i586-pc-mingw32msvc) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: question about building a custom kernel X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:33:11 -0000 On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:46:27 -0500 "illoai@gmail.com" wrote: > You aren't going to gain much in speed or size savings, so > do take care to understand what you hope to gain. If you > wish to shorten kernel compile times and reduce the size of > /boot, have a look at the MODULES_OVERRIDE and > WITHOUT_MODULES variables in /etc/make.conf. That > said, good luck, I haven't had any serious problems and I've > been using custom kernels since FreeBSD 4.1 or so. > While I agree in principle that compiling a custom kernel isn't usually worth it on modern machines, I recently gained a 65% disk space saving over GENERIC by bulding a custom kernel. Granted that was achieved because it's installed on a router with just 128MB RAM so I removed things like wifi and usb support, opted for "device mii" and added the PHY drivers I knew were used and added pf support, but it does show that substantial savings are still possible. Another reason for building a custom kernel is to add functionality that isn't available through modules, such as support for DTrace. -- Bruce Cran