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Date:      Sat, 19 Oct 1996 17:14:13 -0500
From:      "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <sysop@mixcom.com>
To:        Dave Marquardt <marquard@Zilker.NET>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, philip@state51.co.uk
Subject:   Re: 2.2 Upgrading for idiots?
Message-ID:  <3.0.32.19961019171412.00c84f8c@mixcom.com>

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At 06:07 PM 3/18/97 -0600, Dave Marquardt wrote:
>Philip Crewdson <philip@state51.co.uk> writes:
>> >FreeBSD Upgrade Checklist for 2.2:
>> 
>> --- invaluable advice snipped  ---
>> 
>> >5)  Reboot, recompile & reinstall your kernel, reboot again, and enjoy.
>> 
>> Is this actually necessary? I've been running the GENERIC 2.1.5 kernel very
>> happily just as it installed itself. What will recompiling actually do for
>> me?
>
>I believe this is in the handbook, but I'll say it anyway.  The
>GENERIC kernel contains support for all sorts of devices that you
>probably don't have on your machine.  The code to support these
>devices is all part of the kernel text that is loaded and pinned into
>kernel memory.  All this code for devices you don't have wastes RAM,
>which you could put to use for user programs, file cache, etc.

And right at the top are the optimizations for what processor you have ie
386, 486, or 586.  Personally I drop some things that I do have, but don't
want used.

What I would recommend is to "lean" the kernel and then after doing the
'make install' move the kernel.old to kernel.GENERIC and keep in / against
the time you need to swap/replace hardware.


-------------------------------------------
Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator
jeff@mixcom.net

MIX Communications
Serving the Internet since 1990



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