Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:31:34 -0600 From: "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net> To: chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Rite of Passage Message-ID: <20001220113134.B242@whizkidtech.net>
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After using FreeBSD, the GENERIC version for more than two years, I finally decided to go through what the FAQ calls the Rite of Passage, that is, customizing my kernel. For a long time I felt very nervous about doing that, too many what-if questions (what if I cannot get it up and lose all my work, and such). But I needed to add more virtual memory, and for that I needed to include the vn pseudo-device into my kernel. So, this morning I went through the kernel configuration file, cutting out things mercilessly (I have no SCSI on this system, for example, or I cut out all Ethernet support since FBSD did not recognize my cheap Infotel card anyway), and finally rebuilt the kernel. I expected it to take hours and run out of virtual memory couple of times (that is quite standard when installing many of the X ports -- XFree86 itself took 8 hours to make!). But, I was pleasantly surprised: The whole process only took several minutes. I ended up with a kernel that is a whole megabyte smaller, and now I have a 64 Meg swap file (only 8 Meg of actual RAM). I rebooted, and watched the system coming up. Everything went smoothly, and everything is working. Hey, I even received a phone call from my brother who lives in Slovakia and whom I rarely get a chance to talk with! (Well, maybe the timing was a coincidence, but karma works in weird ways, so who knows. :) Perhaps I should post this in newbies rather than chat, but essentially all I want to say is: If this Unix thingie is still relatively new to you, you might want to hear that rebuilding the FreeBSD kernel is a painless process, smoother than installing many of the ports. So, if you feel nervous about building a custom kernel (just as I did for so long), don't be! Go for it! The worst thing that can happen is that you will have to type in the name of the old kernel if it does not work (which, of course, you should copy to another file first). And kudos to the kernel developers for making such a nice, powerful, yet very flexible system! Thank you for a work well done. Adam -- Press any key to continue, any other key to quit To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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