Optimized kernel builds: the straight dope

[Ben Collins]

On Fri, 2006-08-25 at 12:39 +1000, Jamie Jones wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-08-24 at 14:27 +0200, Ben Collins wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-08-24 at 19:01 +1000, Jamie Jones wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2006-08-24 at 01:24 -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Any additional data you can provide through your own observations is welcome
> > > > in this discussion.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > I've tried now asking for detailed instructions on how to reproduce
> > > this, ideally with Ben's config for contest, twice now. Both replies I
> > > got have not provided something I can use to add more data to validate
> > > or refute the decision. 
> > > 
> > > That being the case, my interest in providing feedback wanes, when I
> > > feel that my request (as simple as it is) is not deemed worthy of an
> > > answer.
> > 
> > There's something to be said for documentation that comes with a
> > program, and people failing to find it. The steps you want are in the
> > docs for the program. I read them, and followed them step-by-step. And
> > Matt even sent that README along with the original email. That being the
> > case, I fail to see what good it would do to rewrite this for you.
> 
> Thank you for considering me an idiot. It was because I read the
> documentation supplied by yourself and the documentation in the Ubuntu
> package ( http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/utils/contest ) that I ask
> for clarification. Do you expect me to install random upstream crap when
> there is already an Ubuntu package ? I would hope not. The fact that is
> is now apparent you don't use the tools you (Ubuntu) supply is
> disappointing, but not unexpected.
> 
> I've come to realise however, that you must not have used the Ubuntu
> package as you seem to have no idea why I asked for a config. Perhaps my
> communication skills need work, but in any case my desire to help is now
> non-existent. You think I'm too dumb to contribute (yet I see some of my
> ideas brainstormed at UDU finally being implemented, so I can't be too
> dumb), that being the case, I will refrain from further contributing to
> this discussion and the apparent waste of bandwidth it is. 

An incorrect assumption. I used "apt-get install contest" and followed
that up by installing dbench since it was needed for a complete test
framework. I then read this:

/usr/share/doc/contest/README.gz:
Download a linux 2.4.19 kernel source tree, and extract it where you
wish to be running your benchmarks. Copy the contest.config file in
this tarball to that directory as .config. Download dbench and compile
it (optional). Copy dbench somewhere into your PATH and copy the .txt
files from the dbench source into your kernel test tree. Then:

make oldconfig
make dep

For the part about contest.config, I simply grabbed:

/usr/share/doc/contest/examples/contest.config

Then I ran "contest". I did nothing else. I grabbed no other files. The
dbench test seemed to run without the need for the mentioned text files.

> I had. You evidently didn't use the Ubuntu package. I no longer care,
> because if I can't read the documentation then I mustn't be able to
> interpret the results then.

Not trying to be offensive, but you must admit that nothing in my
instructions above are undocumented, and none of it required me to
create some magical files that anyone else could not obtain. It's mostly
cut-and-paste.

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