How hard is it to compile stuff for mandrake?

[JayMan]

Hey guys n gals,

I'm still a newbie to linux, actually i havent used it much at all, only tried mandrake 8 a while ago when it 1st came out.

Basically i'm thinking about trying mandrake 8.2 out, but i wanna make it fly on my machine, so basically i wanna compile all the stuff so its optimized for the hardware.

I'm aware it takes a long to time compile, but i'm wondering how hard is it to setup? What do i need to get it going? What are the chances of it not compiling correctly?

Downloading the stuff is no problem.... cable

JayMan

[KraM]

It would be easier if you used a distribution that was designed for compile at install time...like gentoo. It's a bit more difficult to install, but it does come with good instructions.

To make a system run quick, you really only need to compile your own kernel and maybe video drivers.

[JayMan]

Actually i did compile the nvidia drivers last time when i was trying it out......

How would i go about compiling just the kernel for mandrake 8.2?

Sorry, i kinda wanna stick with mandrake since i have a small amount of experience with it already.

I'll probably never end up getting around to doing this, i'm just curious incase i get bored one day hehe

JayMan

[KraM]

Download the latest stable (2.4.xx) kernel from www.kernel.org

Copy it somewhere (probably should put it in your home directory). Run:

tar xvzf linux-2.4.xx.tar.gz
cd linux
make menuconfig

this will compile the config program and you will see the configuration screen. Now you should go through all the options and include the things you want. Each one has some help info for it. If you aren't sure you need something, then just press m to include it as a module (if it can be compiled as a module that is). Make sure you tick the kernel module loader.

Things you don't include as modules: ATA disk support, the filesystem that your root partition has. These have to be compiled into the kernel (ie. press y, not m). When you have finished exit and run:

make dep
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.xx

if you are using lilo you will to add an entry to lilo.conf (see /etc/lilo.conf and man lilo.conf) and then run /sbin/lilo. If you are using grub, i don't know what to do (maybe nothing).

then reboot and select your new kernel at startup. If it fails to boot, boot with your old kernel and try configuring and compiling again.

I hope someone can explain what to do better than I just did

Good luck

[CMonster]

Generally speaking, if you really want Linux to "fly" on your machine, be concerned first about the basic system configuration such as disabling or removing unused services, then move on to compiling the kernel and applications for your specific CPU. When recompiling the kernel try also to concentrate on what to "leave out" and not just seclecting the correct CPU.

In addition, any Linux savy person can tell you that the most popular window manager/desktop environments for Linux (Gnome&KDE) are very top-heavy. Selecting a light window manager such as icewm or fluxbox is perhaps the single most important thing you can do to "speed up" Linux.