Paul,
Despite your condescending attitude, for your information the first version of Linux I ran came on a stack of floppies. I got it up and running, but after a few months I changed to a distribution called Yggdrasil and ran that for several years. I don't remember the kernel version of that one, but given that I installed Yggdrasil in 1994, I presume it was probably 0.99, while my first one had been 0.98 (which if I recall correctly was the first public version).
However, as I say I am not a zealot for an particular distribution and I know hundreds of users back in the States who all swear by a particular distro that they find most appealing...and every one is an "aficionado" of Linux.
On my part, one of the strengths of Linux is the great variety of options (although in some ways that is also a weakness). Thus, I often suggest various distros to people depending on their intended use, the machine the wish to run it on, and their personal experience and personality.
Because I am by no means a programmer, though, and because the major benefit of an OS to me lies in what I can accomplish with it without having to dedicate too much time and effort to simply wrestle with the OS, I find most distro arguments rather childish. If you can match a distro to a new user's likes and needs so he gets excited rather than simply frustrated, that is a win in my book.
Of course, part of my work for about thirty years was finding technical solutions for client firms ranging from sole proprietorships to Fortune 50 corporations. That taught me long ago that many people are turned off by zealots in this field--and anyone who argues in general terms without giving specifics for a recommendation but who instead says "trust me, I'm experienced" will simply lose the attention of too many people.
In my case, I am much like many others--I want the darned thing to simply work with minimal commitment of time and energy that might stand in the way of the things I actually want and need to get done.
Now, my suggestion that someone think about compiling their own kernel had nothing to do with modularity and loading modules...although there is obviously much that can be gained if many functions are moved into loadable modules if they are not an absolute requirement to be in the kernel itself, there is a huge amount of source code that is there to make it possible to optimize the system for a given architecture. By including those parts that are optimal for a given system, the compiler can ignore all the rest. Even the fact that so many stock kernels are created for the lowest common denominator means that simply recompiling the kernel for the box it'll run on is a performance win in many cases.
Of course with today's hardware to throw at it, even a relatively inefficient generic kernel may be "good enough" for most folks--but not everyone is running fully up to date equipment or with all the RAM they might like. For them, compiling a custom kernel can be an absolute godsend in memory footprint and in day-to-day use. As I said, I have not done this for my personal machines in five or six years--but about two years ago I helped another gentleman do a custom kernel as part of building a machine that would be used as a rather simple file server to take advantage of a relatively minimal amount of RAM and other system resources. It was part of tuning the box for the use he needed. For that machine, we got rid of the GUI entirely--it was to be used without monitor, mouse, or keyboard after all since it was designed to be accessed remotely.
But then, since I obviously lack your depth of experience perhaps there is something I am missing in this view?
Nowadays, there are from time to time relatively basic things I must either learn or perhaps relearn when it has been a long while since I dabbled with that particular function. Thus, I may ask questions as well as give suggestions. That does not mean, however, that I am a "newbie" in all respects.
David
--- In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, "Paul" <pfrederick1@...> wrote:
> Nope. Been there, ran that, probably for longer than you've been using Linux. Though I did stop slacking long ago and I hear they've made some improvements. Still, if they were doing that well I think I'd have heard about it.
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