Recompiling your kernel for your processor?

**Mado** · 08-19-2003

Anyone do this?

I decided to try it awhile ago on my Athlon 2000+. The difference was amazing. It was so much faster than before, and even the boot time lessened. So now, everytime I install linux, the first thing I do is recompile the kernel for the specific computers processor. Anyone else do this?

**big_k105** · 08-19-2003

i have never done this but if it really makes a difference i think i mite have to try it on my laptop.

ps how long did you take you to recompile

**Mado** · 08-19-2003

It took me about 25-35 minutes, but I'm running a fast cpu. it should take that long, but building the modules and installing them can take a little bit.

**kriss** · 08-19-2003

25 minutes? Do you have a precompiled gcc or have you compiled it self?

**QuickDraw** · 08-19-2003

how could one go about doing this if they were interested in trying it out? cause with my processor being a "mere" 733mhz, anyway to seemingly make it run smoother and faster would be ... well ... excellent.

**Giro** · 08-19-2003

That is long it takes my xp2200+ about 2 minutes to compile a kernel but i strip mine right down so that would make it faster. Still seems long.

**Mado** · 08-19-2003

interesting. Here's the commands I did:

Code:

cd &#91;location of kernel source&#93;
make menuconfig
make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install

it took me about 30 minutes for all of those commands to be done.

the make menuconfig takes you to a menu configuration of the kernel where you can select your CPU. I also turned of some other stuff. (like support for NON-IDE/NON-SCSI cdrom drives)

after that I rebooted and in lilo there was a new option called kernel-cutsom or something like that.

**kriss** · 08-19-2003

You really shouldnt use the "make clean" because it deletes the compiled source stuff, so when you are going to recompile your kernel with the same kernel source, it will be as if you where compiling it all over again, instead of just compiling the new stuff. If you skip "make clean" I'm shure a kernel compile takes < 5 minutes. No reason to waste resources

Probably bad explained, but I hope you guys got my point

**jasonlambert** · 08-19-2003

Originally Posted by Kriss

You really shouldnt use the "make clean" because it deletes the compiled source stuff, so when you are going to recompile your kernel with the same kernel source, it will be as if you where compiling it all over again, instead of just compiling the new stuff. If you skip "make clean" I'm shure a kernel compile takes < 5 minutes. No reason to waste resources

Probably bad explained, but I hope you guys got my point

IMO it is always good to do a make clean on any source/program, as it clears out redundant crap, and anything left behind from a "bad" "make".

/my USD0.02

**sarumont** · 08-19-2003

Yeah...I agree with J. You never know what COULD go wrong when you don't use make clean. It's a minimal resource hit for a better chance at everything working correctly. BTW it takes me about 15m to compile a kernel on my Athlon XP2000+

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