Gentoo Developers Exploring The Possibility Of Shipping Distribution Binary Kernels

[ElectricPrism]

This is why you always have two kernels in your /boot. The previously known booting one and the one you just configured.
I learnt that in the 90's with Mandrake

Even most binary distros get this right with -fallback kernels and initramfs-fallback to load.

It just takes a simple cp to make a backup.

Even then assuming you can boot from a zfs or btrfs you could probably just snapshot /boot before compiling to have a fallback that works fine too.

I feel like this should be a non-issue.

[schmalzler]

[QUOTE=ElectricPrism;n1146816]

It just takes a simple cp to make a backup./QUOTE]

Using symlinks is even safer. No backup needed. Just set kernel_current and go.

[Naib]

Even most binary distros get this right with -fallback kernels and initramfs-fallback to load.

It just takes a simple cp to make a backup.

Even then assuming you can boot from a zfs or btrfs you could probably just snapshot /boot before compiling to have a fallback that works fine too.

I feel like this should be a non-issue.

its even easier than that. make install gives each kernel a unique name already and mk-grub uses the highest version as the default. This really is a non-issue

[nvaert1986]

Also doing a dummy run (for the lulz). it is essentially the archlinux config and then compiled locally. Now I do wonder whether they honor the choise of openrc or systemd for the init, ill see in a moment

Actually both systemd and OpenRC are supported, though most use OpenRC, I'm a stubborn one using systemd on Gentoo (most use OpenRC), with manually compiled kernel, no initramfs on f2fs and plymouth

[rmoog]

I don't think this will pan out. There's no such thing as a universal unicorn config.
Let's dissect this issue.

• Your config is for amd64? Great for you. It won't work on other platforms.
• Your config does not support drivers as modules but instead all modules are built-in? Great for you. It will work on routers, but it will be a problem on pretty much anything else.
• Your config has nouveau as a built-in module instead of modular module? Great for you. It will blackscreen on unsupported nVidia cards.
• Your config does not have built-in filesystem drivers? Great for you. It will fail to boot without an initrd. Even worse if your bootloader is something like the Raspberry Pi firmware and needs offsets and lenghts to allocate memory for the decompressed kernel and decompressed initrd in order to even use an initrd.
• Your config does not need ext4? Great. It will not work for people who use ext4.

See where I'm going with this? The kernel config always needs to be tailored to the user's use case and there is no such thing as a universal unicorn config that supports every use case in existence.

[marion]

A generic kernel for Gentoo has already been done and is available here:

https://gitweb.gentoo.org/dev/ago.git/tree/sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-image

[azdaha]

I don't think this will pan out. There's no such thing as a universal unicorn config.
Let's dissect this issue.

• Your config is for amd64? Great for you. It won't work on other platforms.
• Your config does not support drivers as modules but instead all modules are built-in? Great for you. It will work on routers, but it will be a problem on pretty much anything else.
• Your config has nouveau as a built-in module instead of modular module? Great for you. It will blackscreen on unsupported nVidia cards.
• Your config does not have built-in filesystem drivers? Great for you. It will fail to boot without an initrd. Even worse if your bootloader is something like the Raspberry Pi firmware and needs offsets and lenghts to allocate memory for the decompressed kernel and decompressed initrd in order to even use an initrd.
• Your config does not need ext4? Great. It will not work for people who use ext4.

See where I'm going with this? The kernel config always needs to be tailored to the user's use case and there is no such thing as a universal unicorn config that supports every use case in existence.

While I like the idea of using gentoo from source, I do see a valid use-case that mgorny mentions in his blog. Other distributions have been able to create and make use of a "universal" pre-built kernel. As long as the option is not the default, I don't see a problem with this either way.

[rmoog]

While I like the idea of using gentoo from source, I do see a valid use-case that mgorny mentions in his blog. Other distributions have been able to create and make use of a "universal" pre-built kernel. As long as the option is not the default, I don't see a problem with this either way.

Those distributions more often than not will blackscreen because they try to use nouveau on cards that aren't supported by nouveau. I forgot to say this, but this is the case also with dynamic modules. It's just way harder to unscrew yourself if the kernel loads nouveau on an unsupported device because you can't unload static modules.

[mouacyk]

Gentoo Starter Edition

Since when has Gentoo not been about choice? Seems like a great opportunity to attract new users.

[Guest]

As a way to reduce the number of issues related to the kernel, I think this is a pretty good idea. It doesn't prevent people from compiling their own kernel with their config if they wish to do so.