How to Implement Linux for an Enterprise Server? This question has been
answered very well and the results have been great since we have
various enterprise editions for servers which are optimized for better
performance.
But how do we go about optimizing a Desktop running on Linux? This
question has not been answered so well. One of the main features of the
optimized versions of the Linux Distributions for the servers has been
the optimized kernel.
Designing the kernel
With the launch of the new Linux kernel 2.6, the performance of Linux
operating systems have increased by leaps and bounds but the kernel
that is distributed with the Linux distributions is a generic kernel
.i.e. it fulfills the requirements of many types of system
configurations (it has support for all types of hardware including the
video, audio, file system etc) while designing a kernel for ones
personal needs these options can be brought down. We can choose to
build a kernel which has support for only our hardware and use that
kernel to give us better performance.
The options that we choose in our kernel can be saved in .config files,
which can be used later. Linux distributions include the .config file
of the generic kernel that they provide.
It is always good to build a kernel from a .config file that has been
provided along with the kernel in our Linux distribution, this way the
success rate of building a kernel can be increased,. since it not
possible for a user at the beginner or moderate level to choose the
correct options from the kernel configuration .
What we can do is, open up the .config file of a kernel from out Linux
distributor that has been working in our system and try to strip it
down i.e. minimize the options our kernel works with.
While choosing a particular option we can choose it to be either built
directly into the kernel or in modules. Modules are not built directly
into the kernel; they are kept in a different directory in the
operating system. These can be loaded on demand i.e. that can be loaded
when they are required .So going by the above rule we included support
for only those options that were deemed most important, directly in our
kernel and the less frequently used ones as modules.
The first step towards building the kernel is to identify the system
hardware
The details of the following should be known before compiling a kernel:
1. Video card
2. Sound card
3. Processor type
4. ATAPI/IDE devices
5. File systems
6.Networking Protocols
7.Devices such as PCI,PCMCIA USB ,SCSI if any
8.Type of input devices such as Mouse ,keyboard, joystick
For more information on the type of hardware, run “lspci -v¨.
The major part where the kernel can be striped down and tuned is in the
following sections
# Processor type and features
Choose the correct processor and
other features include
a
preemptible/nonpreemptible kernel (recommended preemptible)
# Power management options (ACPI, APM)
Many of the options here are for
Laptops, so choose the one required for
your system.
# Bus options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA, MCA, and ISA)
PCI cards can be left in t
configuration while PCMCIA cards are for laptops, so
u does not need them either
# PCI Hotplug Support
These cards are also rare in
desktops so check out for these too
# Device Drivers
# Memory Technology Devices (MTD)
These are also rare, and I am sure that I do not have any of these
# Parallel port support
# IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support
Required in laptops
# Block devices
Choose the correct block devices that you need
# ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
Choose the correct type of IDE/ATAPI device that you have
# SCSI support type (disk, tape,
CD-ROM)
Most of the desktops do not have this, so can be safely removed
# Old CD-ROM drivers (not SCSI,
not IDE)
Depends on the system configuration
# Multi-device support (RAID and
LVM)
Can be safely removed
# IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support
Depends on the system configuration (generally in laptops)
# networking support
Choose the correct type of support your network hardware
(Ethernet
10/100/1000 Ambit, Token ring, Wan, Wireless interfaces etc) along
with
technology and protocols you want to use, like ATM, IPX, Bridges
IPV6 etc.
# IrDA options
# Infrared-port device drivers
Can be removed
# Bluetooth device drivers
Can be used a module (may be required for future use)
# ISDN
This can also be removed if you so not have an ISDN connection
# Input device support
Choose the correct input device support (Mouse, keyboard, joystick etc)
# Character devices
Character devices and watchdogs are rare so can remove then if u does
not
have that
# Sound
Choose the correct sound driver that your system has (ISA, PNP
PCI
cards)
# USB support
Choose the USB device that you have
It will be safer to keep these options in modules you may need them
at
later stage
# File systems
Choose the File system that you
wish to use .EXT2 (Linux native) support is
too built in the
kernel, other file system support van be kept in modules. Remove
the ones you so not wish to keep.
Also choose the Charset for the file
systems
(Charset for VFAT is iso-8859-1)
Also choose the Network File
system, partition types for your system.
# Kernel hacking
Choose this option if you wish to
develop drivers for Linux
Linux 2.6 kernel has exhaustive features, the above mentioned points
can only help to sort out some of these, as we get more and more
acclimatized with our systems working and our enhanced kernel,
subsequent revision of the kernel will lead to a leaner and a better
performing kernel.
Some points to remember while designing the kernel are:
Do not forget to keep the support for the File systems that you are
running.
It always a good point to read the help statements provided with the
kernel source.
Also never overwrite the working kernel since that might be required if
the newer kernel fails.
Use module option for those support which may be required ,this way you
do need to compile yourself a new kernel each time and keeping the size
of the kernel image smaller.
The resulting kernel obtained will be smaller in size, fast and
optimized to the user needs. I have compiled the kernel for about a no.
of times and today I am using a kernel which is giving me an excellent
performance according to my needs.
Date
:2/5/05
Author:gaurav
masand
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