Recompiling a Kernel

[will]

I've did a "uname -m" and confirmed that I have an i686 machine. Since Mint is compiled for i386 (like most distros) I am playing around with the idea of recompiling the kernel to get faster speed out of Mint and just to learn how

Is it worth it? Is it complicated? Can someone point me towards a verified tutorial?

Thanks!

Will

[scorp123]

I've did a "uname -m" and confirmed that I have an i686 machine.

Code: Select all

cat /proc/cpuinfo


Since Mint is compiled for i386 (like most distros) I am playing around with the idea of recompiling the kernel to get faster speed out of Mint and just to learn how

"most distros" = i386 is absolutely wrong IMHO; Nowadays "most distros" are geared towards i586 and only Debian-based distros (plus a few other rare exceptions) still support i386.

Is it worth it?

If you really know what you do and if you need to run a server or if you depend on real-time calculations (CAD/CAM, rendering, controlling a nuclear powerplant, editing of very large media files, etc.): Yes. If you just run a desktop system: No. The differences are minimal. To really take full advantage of your CPU you'd have to compile everything from scratch and not just the kernel. In such a case you should use something like Gentoo Linux: http://www.gentoo.org

Is it complicated?

Your mileage may vary.

Can someone point me towards a verified tutorial?

http://www.howtoforge.com/kernel_compilation_ubuntu

As this stuff was already asked here many times I will make this sticky + lock this thread, as all questions were properly answered to IMHO

[Husse]

Here's a link to a page that appeared after this post was posted
http://ubuntu-unleashed.blogspot.com/20 ... -with.html