[Asterisk-Users] A question about Linux kernels and Asterisk

[Joseph Finley]

>>
>
>The basic wisdom about a kernel is to use as few pieces in it as 
>possible. If you can get away with stripping it down to bare minimum 
>then you have removed sections of low non-swappable memory from ever 
>loading. Optimize to your current CPU level. Maybe implement QoS and 
>firewalling so you can protect your system better plus get your RTP out 
>with priority.
>  
>
>So apart from minimising memory usage there is nothing that can really 
>be done to improve the kernels computational ability.. The best way I 
>can articulate my thinking is if we take an example of a car engine, you 
>can take the cylender head and clean up the inlet on outlet ports, even 
>open them up a little to get a better path for the air fuel mixture to 
>travel through.. Is there no way to "open up" the computational paths in 
>the kernel to give it the ability to process more data through the CPU 
>(obviously the CPU is the the hard limit of the processing ability).

>I can't comment on Fedora vs. RH9 versions of the kernel as I 
>personally won't ever run one unless I am hog tied to some special 
>driver whose creator pushes binary only packages against one of those 
>pre made kernels. I prefer the bone stock kernel.org sources, but that is
just a
>preference.   



Well, from my experience with Linux which dates back to Slackware on the
v1.10 kernels is that you had no choice.  You had to compile the kernel.
There were no RPMs to automate this.  Purpose?  You can customize the kernel
with the code you want.  Way back when, the HAM radio, T1 cards, controller
card drivers and just about every NIC (at the time) options were selected to
be compiled by default.  The post-compiled kernels RedHat and others provide
have just about every device set up as a module to load.  My opinion.

I've heard Gentoo is a lot like Slackware, but I have yet to try it.  I'm a
bit biased especially when meeting/talking with Patrick Volkerding @ Comdex
a long way back.

Joe