[ATrpms-users] FESCo Meeting

[Richi Plana]

On Wed, 2007-09-05 at 14:36 -0400, Phil Schaffner wrote:
> > That'll be sad. Instead of being able to come up with the possibility
> > of
> > coming up with a spin of Fedora with optimized kernel modules for
> > their
> > target audience or even be able to have just the needed modules for
> > ones
> > system (if one is savvy enough) via yum and rpm, you'll end up with a
> > monolithic kernel with all the modules in the kernel tree installed.
> 
> To me a monolithic kernel means one with all drivers built-in, as
> opposed to modules.  The only penalty to the proposal would seem to be
> the additional bandwidth and disk space required.  Having all the
> modules available in Fedora already included in the kernel would seem to
> simplify life for Joe user.  Those who need other modules are free to
> use kmdls, dkms, etc.

I meant a monolithic kernel _package_.

> Nothing preventing anyone from rolling their own customized
> kernel/modules for any custom spin for a particular target audience.
> What are your objections to the proposal?

No, of course not. But I believe the whole point behind Fedora is that
rolling out ones own packages wouldn't be needed. Merely re-spinning the
existing packages and customizing them via configuration was to be their
target.

My only objection really is that instead of having a distro that can be
customized (as they put it) by just respinning Fedora, one ends up doing
the same thing at the lowest-most layer (the source package and
recompiling). I was just sold on this dream (perhaps in error) that
Fedora was also about coming up with a system that's easily customizable
for distro-makers and administrators.

Because you have to admit that breaking them down into modules is a win
situation for both audiences whether they be administrators as well as
end-users. There are actually people out there who want lean, mean
computing machines or with limited resources that breaking down things
into modules makes things possible. And if a person really wants ALL the
modules installed, then that's easily done, too.

If the solution is to "roll out ones own", then it just feels (and this
is my opinion) that the packages designer (Fedora in this case ... and
notice I don't use the word "distribution designer") isn't going all the
way to address as many concerns as is plausible.
--

Richi Plana