NEW - upgrading kernel

[Florian Diesch]

"Miguel Cardenas" <mfcardenas at gmail.com> wrote:

> I want to upgrade to kernel 2.6.18.1 from *sources* and want to make
> it lighter by removing unused drivers and choosing the ones required
> for me (my motherboard specific chipset, my video capture card, my
> sound driver, etc), but first want to know some things...

Don't expect better performance or things like that. I'd only do it if
you need features that are not included in the Ubuntu kernels or if youz
like to play around a bit.
Better don't do it on a important system.


> 1) Can I install other kernels directly from sources downloaded from
> kernel.org ?

I'm doing it and had no problems so far. But of course you are on your
own than if you have problems. 

Keep the original Ubuntu kernel as a backup so you can boot it in case
your own causes problems.



> 2) Does Ubuntu configuration (the system) require some special modules
> to work or for some services (automount, shared memory, etc.)? if so,
> which ones are required? Probably remove only drivers related to
> hardware and not system functions to avoid Ubuntu crashes? which ones
> can I remove safely?

It's usually safe to remove hardware drivers you don't need. Don't
remove things you don't understand.


> 3) I'm thinking that can save current kernel (I guess 2.6.17)
> configuration, load it into the 2.6.18 configuration, then remove
> unused drivers and modules and tune finely the ones specific to my
> hardware...

Maybe you need to apply some patches to get the same features as the
Ubuntu kernel.



   Florian
-- 
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/>