why don't they split the kernel releases by arquitecture?

asph

What is the point of downloading the full kernel sources everytime, when you only need the x86, ppc, sparc or whatever part?

They could do separate packages, so that the minimize their bandwith load and people can download the kernel faster.

I know this is sort of obvious so I guess there is a reason not to do it.. this is not a flame, just a curiosity

just to point an idea, maybe they could do a little form in the web so that you select what arquitecture you are using, if will use X or not, if have pci, agp, isa, if want sound, irda, wireless, iptables... and they generate the tar.bz2 on the fly in a temp dir, and you download it! you would download what you need
that's crazy for the server, but wouldnt it be great in a phantasy world?

*edit* typ0 *edit*
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smart · Guru Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 455

??
Architechtures should all be included.
What I don't get is why no clear split is made between core and drivers. But for as much as i see it, this seems to be a religious thing.

asiobob · Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:12 pm Post subject:

I suspect because it wouldn't reduce the size of the source by much (note this is one of my potentially inaccurate thoughts) as drivers and most other kernel options/code are shared amongest the archs

asph · Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 2:00 pm Post subject:

why should all architecures be included? is any of the sparc, ppc, um, x86_64, v850, sh, sh64, parisc, m68knommu, mips, arm, h8300, cris.. code being used to compile my x86 kernel? ppc/ dir is 4,1M, arm/ is 3,1M.. so that's space a x86 system could free, i guess..
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Trevoke · Advocate Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 4099 Location: NY, NY

Well, what if you want to build a kernel that you can run on ANY machine?
Pop out the hard drive, pop it in another machine, BAM, it works.
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dtor · Guru Joined: 19 Jan 2004 Posts: 461 Location: Indiana, USA

DaMouse · Apprentice Joined: 18 Jul 2003 Posts: 233

Its not that much bloat compressed.. really it isn't.. dont make work where no works needed.

-DaMouse
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