Should Aunt Tillie Build Her Own Kernels?

DeadBugs writes: "Linux Weekly News is reporting on a new linux controversy. The inclusion of a Kernel Autoconfiguration program that would make it easy for almost anybody to build a custom Kernel on their computer. Eric Raymond supports this idea saying that this will bring Linux to a wider market. Those that oppose this idea mainly think that only those educated few should custom build their own Kernels. I for one hope this gets included if only to make standard installations and upgrades faster."

Comments

Controversy???

[CrazyBrett]

Why the heck is this a controversy? It seems to me that anything that makes good technology accessible to more people is a good thing.

I'd like to hear good arguments in the other camp, though.

Re:Controversy???

[Tryfen]

It doesn't make good technology accessible. Look at something like a Palm Piolt. It is (for the conventional) user, impossible to modify the underlying OS or the UI. This is a GOOD thing. People should not mess with what they don't understand. Just because you have a body, it doesn't automatically follow that you know exactly what sort of drugs to take, what exercise regime to follow or how best to educate yourself.

Fine - let people configure their system to some degree. But when it comes to meddling with things that change the fundamental operation of their machine, leave it to those who understand what they are doing.

Re:Controversy???

[Nailer]

Eric Raymond supports this idea saying that this will bring Linux to a wider market. Those that oppose this idea mainly think that only those educated few should custom build their own Kernels.

My own personal opinion is that:

* nobody should have to ever recompile their kernel (just update their distro in the worst case)

* everyone should be able to have the option of doing so easily if they want to.

Re:Controversy???

[einhverfr]

I am here with you. I think that this is a good thing, but consider:

Most of our aunts and uncles could not even consider installing hardware in their computer (with the exception of external devices) anyway, so with a few exceptions, I think that this is not likely to initially make kernel building available to a wider audience. Can you imagine your 60 year old uncle trying to install an internal NIC-- this is more intimidating than the actual software, even though at present the software is much more difficult.

Also, consider that there are few reasons for an average person to rebuild their kernel. I myself (as an advanced user) only do it for special purposes, and for this I require a high level of control over what gets compiled in and what gets omitted. I know that you will say that security patches are the real advantage of doing this, but for a firewalled, single user system (or one with only trusted family users as regular users), there is little need for patching the most common types of security holes which require physical access to the computer.

(OK, so you are SLIGHTLY more vulnerable to makicious programs and viruses this way, but have you ever broken things by upgrading your kernel? I have, and then I have to find out where the problem occurred.)

My question is: Will dumbing it down mean less control, or can I still have the same level of control over how my kernel is built? If so than I cannot support it. Also, what if I am building a kernel for a different (slow) system which does not match my system or I want to make a specialized boot image for a system recovery kit?

Lets face it-- compiling the kernel sounds scary and all, but with make menuconfig and make xconfig, it is hardly rocket science. These items should still be available in some form even if an automatic configuration utility is included...

Re:Controversy???

[blitzrage]

People obviously should not mess with things they dont understand.

My simply answer to that is: Then how did you learn?

Re:Controversy???

[rseuhs]

.. unless you've pooched/rm'd the factory-kernel. I mean, you /can/ screw stuff up.

And exactly how would that be differnt from today?

I don't need an easy to use autoconf tool to rm my kernel.

That was my point.

No, that's not a point. It's like saying 10 years ago: "OH my god all these ./configure scripts make it too easy for newbies to compile software!!! THE HORROR!" and then saying "Oh well, they could also delete the software, format the harddrive or pour coffe on the mobo. That was my point."

What utter nonsense.

Knowing what NOT to touch (in this case, the factory-kernel) is a part of life.

The auto-configurator is the only one touching anything in /boot here. Aunt Tillie won't wander around the filesystem randomly deleting files because of that.

Or compiled with the wrong flags such that your machine /boots/, but munges your hardware.

Wow, we are getting esoteric... Destroying hardware via software is only in very, very rare cases even possible. (for example old monitors, but new monitors won't break no matter what signal they get - but the kernel doesn't handle X anyway).

I run a dozen computers and I can't think of any device that could be harmed by the kernel. Not a single one.

But lets pretend such device would exist. The risk harming that hardware would be actually reduced because the autoconfigurator would choose the right setting and if unsure go with the safe settings.

You admit yourself that you havn't compiled a custom kernel, because of the lack of this tool, but more importantly, you're not even really aware of the risks!

I compiled a million kernels in my job (embedded systems engeneer). I said I didn't compile and optimize kernels for friends and for quite some time I don't to it for my desktops anymore neither because I'm a lazy bastard.

Re:Controversy???

[Nailer]

Kernel modules were created for precisely that purpose. The solution to the problem is making things more modular.

Aunt Tilly doesn't care about a whopping 1.5% speed increase in StarOffice or Evolution. If she did decide she wants to recompile her kernel, and the utility Aunt Tilly is to do this allows her to render her system unusable (to her) she's gonna care a lot more about the fact that her machine doesn't work.

Linux people tend to be overly obsessed with their kernels, probably from pre-modutils when recompiling the kernel every 5 seconds was part of running the OS. Personally I find there's a whole bunch of other performance tweaks people could bring about on their machines that would have more impact than recompiling the kernel. Its just that recompiling a kernel is cooler.

Fuck that. For a server, I want a secure, reasonably modular kernel that I know a whole bunch of other people will be using. With a `known quantity' like this I can subscribe to the relevant mailing lists and know about any stability problems, FS corruption issues, security bugs, etc, and download / install the new relewases or run `apt-get upgrade' to fix the problem. Like Red Hat's Alan Cox 2.4.9-13, that's been installed by my distro. There are thousands of other people using this kernel built in this way with this set of options and submitting bugs to RH and the kernel mailing lists.

For a desktop, I repeat: end users don't generally care about kernels unless they're a problem, many of those that do don't bother to tweak their machine in any other way, which seems to indicate that many simply *like* recompiling kernels than any real technical reason.

Re:Controversy???

[phossie]

listen - you're wrong in focus. re-read the third example, the one about penelope the power-user. i don't think the real benefit or intent of this is "the masses". there are a *lot* of us out there who'd love to be able to spend a while and learn a bunch about linux - enough to make it useful - but simply don't have the [time & interest] to deal with the nuts and bolts of Yet Another System.

i would be running linux on two machines *today* if this tool existed. i'd take the evening and do it. (i know my way around as a user.) as it is, i must gently pester more educated or linux-familiar friends to spend hours helping me set up and optimize the machines so that they're even *usable* for their intended purpose.

i buy them pizza and beer, and hope they don't get bored with my questions - because i *want* to learn, but that's hard to do all at once... when you've got a lot of other work to do.

not everyone wants to be a competent admin - some of us just appreciate those who are, and go about our own specialties.

Re:Controversy???

[elefantstn]

People should not mess with what they don't understand.

I never would have learned anything if I thought like that.

Let the mob sort it out...

[davejenkins]

Am I reading correctly? Is this a debate over limiting vs. allowing certain behavior? What part of the Open Source philosophy got suspended while I was at lunch?

Let some distribution try this. It may take off, it may fail-- that's what it's all about...

Re:Let the mob sort it out...

[singularity]

Whether it is worth it to give users more freedom?

I agree with the original post. Anything that allows people to more easily use their freedom with OSS is only a god thing. I cannot even believe there is an argument about it.

The original article, with its reference to the "educational elite," is just crazy.

Exactly.

[NetJunkie]

Expect to see a lot of "This software only supported under the standard Red Hat v7.2 Kernel."

I don't blame the software companies one bit either.

Point could be moot.

[mystery_bowler]

Most Linux users are already familiar with the caveats and reprecussions of customizing your kernel. This kind of tool would just make it easier to get to.

There aren't all that many "casual" Linux users. That market is dominated by Microsoft. And if you've deployed Linux to a work environment, chances are you won't allow a tool like this to be used, because you'll probably want to lock down the configurations (making your life as a sys admin a lot easier).

Assuming Linux continues to proliferate to the consumer market, I still wouldn't be worried about people tinkering with their kernel too much. Most people, especially at the "average Joe" level, don't understand the inner workings of their OS. Heck, most of them fear their OS and assume that they'll break something if they tinker with the OS's inner settings. I wouldn't conclude that simply because the tool is there that most people would be interested in using it.

Re:Point could be moot.

[Bodrius]

Most people seem to answer to posts like these by saying that the Linux community wants to take away the "casual users" from Microsoft.

Although I have my doubts about that, I think a tool like this would be potentially useful (perhaps even more useful) for non-casual users.

I have configured a kernel or two as a user and I never found the problem too complicated with the tools already available, but it's still a step that can take from 10 minutes to half an hour, depending on how complicated is the setup, what decisions you have to make, and how many acronyms you have to check just in case they apply to your hardware this time.

I'd like to take the time at some point to do that, but sometimes I'd like to get the hardware to work fast and just get on with my life, and the distribution kernel doesn't always work at those times.

This is doubly true if you're installing Linux for someone else, and they happen not to have the most compatible hardware, or know very little about their manual-lacking components. Spending hours configuring kernels, telling them what you're doing and trying them out is not fun and probably, at that point, not even educational.

Different levels of effort for different people

[Stiletto]

Ponder:

Should Aunt Tillie Build Her Own Kernels?
Should Aunt Tillie Install Her Own OS?
Should Aunt Tillie Install Her Own Applications?
Should Aunt Tillie Run Her Own Applications?
Should Aunt Tillie Produce Her Own Documents?
Should Aunt Tillie Think Her Own Thoughts?

Disclaimer

[SirSlud]

*****WARNING. USING THIS TOOL CAN SCREW UP YOUR COMPUTER, BIG TIME. IF YOU WANT TO USE IT, DONT BE MAD AT ANYONE BUT YOURSELF IF YOU FUDGE THINGS UP*****

If MS can include regedit, you cant tell me that we can't inlcude autoconf .. I mean, seriously. The only thing you could end up with is some fucked kernels (who should get along just fine with the fucked registries) and some users who will learn and be cautious, and end up having a better understanding their computers.

Yes, but a caveat ..

[Eloquence]

I think that kernel compilation should obviously be as easy and accessible as possible. After all, one of the promises of Linux is to make hacking fun (cf. L. Torvalds: Just for Fun), and there's no reason to build artificial barriers into the OS. The more I play around with Linux, the more I find myself exploring other concepts of computing (networking, various script languages, filesystems etc.) about which I would not even think on Windows, because everything that does not work best over a graphical interface is just so user-unfriendly. (OTOH, there are many times when Linux has been frustrating, especially with regard to documentation -- I think using different tools, like Wikis, may make this part of Linux development more accessible to contributors.)

But I don't think "Aunt Tillie" should accidentally come anywhere near a kernel: Users should not care about kernels because they have to, but because they can. That means that most hardware configuration tasks should be accessible without touching the kernel, including installation of new drivers. So include lots of warning signs -- optimally a normal user will never have to log into his box as "root" except for installing new software with a graphical apt-get like tool.

Isn't that the whole point?

[Cyberllama]

I mean honestly, what claim can linux hold over windows if not that the availabillity of the source code allots the user more freedom? This is, as far as I'm concerned, what linux is all about. I am totally unable to understand any argument against making one of the most important benefits of linux more accessible to a wider market.

There was a time...

[Brendan Byrd]

...when elite hackers said that only elite hackers should have Linux, and all of these "Red Hat" guys are polluting the user base. They are, of course, full of shit.

The whole point of Linux is having a stable and friendlier version of UNIX that is GNU and doesn't have any ties to MS. We now have Average Joe User with their own copy of Linux/X and they are using it just fine. Why should we limit ourselves because we need to do it the "old fashioned way"? Let them (and us) have a easy-to-run auto-config script for building kernels. Are we going to delete our "make menuconfig" scripts and tell everybody to replace it with "vi Makefile", just for being elitists?

Personally, I think these are the "10 miles in the snow, both ways" people, who still believe that the best way to configure PPP on Mandrake is rolling your own scripts. (Uhh..."netconf"...duh!)

The quicksand to avoid with kernel recompiles

[LinuxParanoid]

Easier to use tools are great.

I just hope we don't start designing things such that people say "oh, to do that just reconfigure your kernel with the foobar option". Feature sets should generally not require kernel recompile imho. For a long time, this was a UNIX weakness.

If we can avoid this (which is after all worse than the old "reboot NT to configure something"), I'm for it 100%. I'm not saying that you have to recompile the kernel much nowdays (I had to once to get an unsupported Ethernet driver working), but kernel recompile gets really easy, I'm nervous that people would start to rely on that way of doing things. Which would be bad.

--LP

Re:Customized kernals run better

[HydroCarbon10]

She doesn't, and the original poster doesn't understand what ESR's system is for. The current build system misses some dependancies and has some other flaws that I can't remember at the moment. Basically, this discussion began a *long* time ago (in linux time at least)...something like a year ago it was coming across lkml. This has nothing to do with granny compiling a kernel, it's about making the build process *better*.

Maybe not good for Aunt Tillie, but good for me

[Jack William Bell]

Aunt Tillie doesn't need this. But, as a computer consultant and VAR, I need the ability to easily make these kinds of changes based on what my customers need.

Sure, I can do this myself the old-fashioned way. But this is the kind of thing I prefer to delegate to someone with a lower billing rate so I can focus on the things that really bring in the bucks. It is easier to train someone to use Eric's AutoConfigurator than it is to explain make files and such...

Jack William Bell, who likes the KISS method in most things.

My Crazy Idea

[graveyhead]

I want a distribution that has a similar GUI installer that RH and Mandrake have, but instead of invoking "rpm -i" for each package, it would build all the install packages from source drops. The "installer script" could be a large XML file that describes how to compile each package, what its dependencies are, and provides a mechanism for tweaking the packages configuration. Most of the packages out there can have their runtime configuration configured via their 'configure' script (wow that's a lot of "configures"), making it a fairly uniform approach. In addition, at the beginning of the install, it would be neat to see controls for your *exact* hardware configuation that get turned into CFLAGS like -march=i[my]86 and -O3, etc.

The only drawback I can see is that it would increase install times by a *lot*. However, in the end you would end up with a *highly* optimized distribution.

The idea came to me while building my own.

Linux for the masses

[Evanrude]

I think an easy to use, Joe User can make his own kernel is a great step as far as making linux more usable for the masses, i.e in a desktop environment. You can make a more compact kernel without knowing ALL the minute system details and random hardware that most people don't have or know what it is. Definitely a step in the right direction.

Re:Good old-fashioned response

[rlowe69]

I hadn't heard about the bug report problem until you brought it up, and it's frankly amazing that it hasn't been addressed in this manner already.

Actually, the bug/patch reporting problem was mentioned in a very recent article about Linux VMs. Rik van Riel complained that Linus' (rather human-based) system was prone to missing patches, no doubt because the mailing list is filled with bogus bug reports, if indeed these are the same lists. Even if they aren't the same lists, Linus would probably have to monitor both anyway.

The point is that we have clear evidence a better system is needed for bug reporting and patch submission to give the main developers some way of organising and prioritising things. Clearly a simple mailing list does not suffice when the number of people submitting gets very large. Any takers?

Re:Don't stop there

[Tony-A]

Happiness.
Aunt Tillie does not need to build a kernel, ever.
Aunt Tillie can easily build a kernel if she feels like it.

Misery.
Aunt Tillie needs to build a kernel.
Aunt Tillie cannot build the kernel she needs.

It's been a long time since I've compiled a kernel except. The last kernel I compiled was to get an NTFS read-only module so I could ftp it to a "rescue". I wish any other configuration was as easy and straightforward. Need to get the "right" starting point and extremely explicit directions, including all the "remember to ...". Needs to describe how to have multiple kernels, in case something wasn't quite 100% safe. Needs to be concise enough so that a total newbie WILL read it.

Besides, when Aunt Tillie has reconfigured her kernel, she knows the "My" of "My Computer" now really means Aunt Tillie's computer.

Elitist snobs

[CAIMLAS]

I don't think that anyone genuinely interested in linux/open source/what have you, and who doesn't have their head stuck up their own asses in conceit would honestly say that an autoconfiguration tool for the kernel is bad. Let's look at this objectively.

First, such a tool would only make linux easier for people that are not knowledgeable with computer workings, and make it a more viable option for those who don't want to mess with, or aren't knoledgeable of, the inner workings of the computer. I've run into many people (online) who don't have support for xy device with #.#.# kernel, don't want to install another distro, and need to compile a kernel.

Second, (as far as I know) this would be something fairly easy to do, provided that the device that wants to be used is already attached to the system - the kernel seems to have a decent detection system already, just have, say, a 'kernel compilation disk' which would have the kernel you want to compile, with all the possible modules compiled in, which would use your system. it'd have it's own initscript, which would have a step-by-step process, walking you through the configuration (eg., Is the kernel source tree untarred already?, Is the kernel source tree in a location other than the standard location? etc)

Just some ponderings.

Except

[Tony-A]

that people understand precisely by messing with things they don't understand. In fact only for very unimportant things does anyone stand a chance of understanding prior to messing with.

what's really wrong with this

[by2]

I have problems with Eric Raymond's scenarios. Forget about if it's a good idea to make it easy for anyone to build a custom kernel, my question is, why should you need to recompile the kernel just to install a device driver ? That's just stupid. Installable drivers, that's the way to go.

Aunt Tillie

[AftanGustur]

I'm with Cox on the matter that I think Aunt Tillie would be better off with the distro's kernel (where she might have lm_sensors, nVidia, TV and Radio drivers), but !

I'l defend Aunt Tillie's *right* to chose !!
That's what freedom is all about, options !