The drivers you are talking about probably don't belong in every kernel - and kernels including them date back to about the same timeframe. The Linux kernel has supported modules since the late '90s, and it's been practially seemelss for over a decade. Kernels that come with distribtions contain these drivers AS MODULES. They are NOT loaded into the kernel unless they are needed. Very few drivers are actally built into the kernel nowadays. Type 'lsmod' in a terminal window, and see the long, ong list of modules that are loaded automatically. I just did that on one of my machines, and there are about 80. 80! None of them are built into the kenrel. They are loaded as needed. Those precompiled modules are, again, separate. They may take up diskspace, but we're talking about a few hundred megabytes. That's not the kind of diskspace a modern system is even going to notice. It is absolutely not impacting memory or performance, either. On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote: > Thanks for your reply. > > Perhaps you are right. I really don't have one good answer, but am confused > and interested in learning. > > Many of the driver modules for things like SCSI and Sound cards I remember go > way back to ISA bus cards. I doubt you could find many of these cards if you > tried. Hundreds of them that don't seem to belong in the same kernel source > as high performance systems. In my downloaded pre-compiled kernel the ancient > driver modules are included and litter up both the configuration file and > library directory. An ancient hardware platform deserves the ancient kernel. > > I realize the PC desktop platform is obsolete to many users. And all the > laptop features, etc., etc., are new to me. But I'm surprised by all the > support for embedded, GPIO, and many things I've barely heard of. One of the > pre-compiled driver modules (GPS) for serial port even used the carrier > detect as a pulse clock. > > I guess what I'm trying to do is a standard master/slave control system over > a standard RS232 link, exploiting standard ATX power supplies on both ends. > > I have an 84 year old farmer friend who likes Ubuntu on his laptops, mails > pictures of his very old car rebuilding projects. He likes old cars because > they're fixable. I would like to think I can still do things with a PC. > > Clug wrote: >> Aren't al kernels nowadays pretty much 100% module-based? Which means you >> can't really get them to be simpler, as such? >> >> >> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote: >> >>> I'm trying to compile a linux kernel that is simpler than the distribution >>> version (using old opensuse 12.2 on an intel p4 mobo). I'm able to use the >>> tools and documentation, and have compiled and installed some variant of >>> the default opensuse download. However, I didn't get it to run the simple >>> standard PC. It seems the grub2 bootloader is another learning process. >>> >>> I did this years ago on simpler pentium machines with lilo bootloader. But >>> going through all the new configuration options and actual compilation >>> literally takes days. From what I can understand, the "vanilla" linux >>> kernel now supports technology I didn't know existed. >>> >>> I'm not sure I know how to get back to basic computing anymore. Just >>> wondering if others have tried and succeeded slimming the kernel down, and >>> any tips?? >>> _______________________________________________ >>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >