Good suggestion doing 'lsmod.' One of the goofy modules I didn't understand and deleted from the new configuration file was "matrox_w1" -- something about my MatroxG400 video card having "Dallas 1 wire master control." Huh?? Well there it was, in lsmod, loaded for what I still don't know. But your suggestion will help a lot. The last time I recompiled a kernel was SuSE 9.2, still a 2.6 kernel (??). And it had a nasty bug in the serial port driver that, when setserial was used, would disable the FIFO and not re-enable it as expected. By the time I patched and "cleaned up" that kernel I lost USB. So I can already see I'm headed in the same direction. Thanks. Clug wrote: > 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 I realize the PC desktop platform is obsolete to many users.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 >> > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >