doc/en/gentoo-kernel.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/gentoo-kernel.xml,v 1.7 2004/06/24 12:39:58 dertobi123 Exp $ -->

<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
<guide link="/doc/en/gentoo-kernel.xml">
<title>Gentoo Linux Kernel Guide</title>
<author title="Author">
    <mail link="swift@gentoo.org">Sven Vermeulen</mail>
</author>
<author title="Contributor">
    <mail link="lostlogic@gentoo.org">Brandon Low</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
    <mail link="carl@gentoo.org">Carl Anderson</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
    <mail link="peesh@gentoo.org">Jorge Paulo</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="bennyc@gentoo.org">Benny Chuang</mail>
</author>

<abstract>
This document gives you an overview on all kernel sources that Gentoo
provides through Portage.
</abstract>

<license/>

<version>0.5</version>
<date>July 3, 2004</date>

<chapter>
<title>Introduction</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
As with everything else in Gentoo Linux, the philosophy of the Gentoo 
Kernel team is to give you, the user, as much freedom of choice as 
possible.  If you take a look at the output of <c>emerge -s sources</c> 
you see a large variety of kernels to choose from.  In this document, 
I will attempt to give you a brief rundown of the goals of each of the 
patch sets, which we at Gentoo design, and also explain the other kernel
sources we make available to you.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>The Choices, Part I</title>
<section>
<title>genkernel</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>Genkernel</c> is a kernel toolset that can be used to autodetect your
hardware and configure your kernel automatically. This is usually recommended
for users who do not feel comfortable about compiling a kernel manually.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>gentoo-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
For most users, the recommended kernel sources are the 
<c>gentoo-sources</c>.  The <c>gentoo-sources</c> package contains 
specially tuned performance kernel patches designed to optimize tasks 
such as compiling while listening to music and browsing the web.  Most 
of you who are new to Gentoo have probably never run a system where you 
are regularly compiling many packages from source while you are doing your
normal everyday tasks on your computer. 
You may find that if you use the <c>vanilla-sources</c> (the official 
kernel sources released from <uri>http://www.kernel.org</uri>) normal tasks -- 
such as listening to music, moving your mouse and the like  -- may appear
jumpy when you are compiling packages.
</p>

<p>
The <c>gentoo-sources</c> contain an updated ACPI subsystem and are based 
on Con Kolivas' high-performance kernel patches (<c>ck-sources</c>). We also
support grSecurity (a set of security-related patches with support for
ACLs), EVMS(2) (a highly flexible storage management filesystem with easy 
partition resizing), JFS (IBM's high-performance filesystem), the latest
NTFS drivers, and more.
</p>

<p>
Because the <c>gentoo-sources</c> are targeted at full performance, they are
also very good for gaming purposes.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>vanilla-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The next kernel sources that many of you will probably be familiar with 
as Linux users are the <c>vanilla-sources</c>.  As I mentioned briefly 
above, these are the official 2.4 kernel sources released on 
<uri>http://www.kernel.org/</uri>. These sources are maintained (contrary 
to popular belief) not by Linus Torvalds himself, but by Marcelo 
Tosatti. Linus is the leader of active kernel development, but as he is 
only one man, he passes off the maintenance of the stable 2.4 kernel branch
to someone he can trust to handle it once it has stabilized.  Thus, Alan
Cox became the maintainer of the Linux-2.2 kernel series and Marcelo 
Tosatti became the maintainer of the Linux-2.4 kernel series. This is 
what all the other patch sets in the 2.4 series are based on. Marcelo has
been doing an outstanding job with its maintenance and it can be 
counted on for stability and up-to-date (if not bleeding edge) hardware
support.
</p>

<p>
<c>vanilla-sources</c> are probably the most stable sources available
since they are the most tested and all possible kernel sources are based 
on them. If you don't need any of the extras that the other kernels supply 
then the <c>vanilla-sources</c> are your thing.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>gentoo-dev-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>gentoo-dev-sources</c> ebuild includes the most up-to-date 2.6 kernel
with Gentoo's optimized performance patches.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>development-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>development-sources</c> ebuild provides the stable 2.6 Linux kernel.  As
opposed to what the name might suggest this kernel source is completely stable
and production-ready. This is the official 2.6 kernel released on
<uri>http://www.kernel.org/</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>gs-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
For users to whom desktop interactive performance comes as a secondary 
priority to reliability and hardware support, we have the 
<c>gs-sources</c>.  GS stands for Gentoo Stable (creative, aren't we?).  
This patch set is tuned and tested to provide the best support for the 
latest hardware and ensures that your mission critical servers will be 
up when you need them.  This kernel doesn't have some of the most 
aggressive performance tuning patches from the <c>gentoo-sources</c>, 
but rest assured, the great performance that you know and love from the
vanilla kernels are alive and well. Where possible and without 
compromising stability we add server related performance patches.
</p>

<p>
This kernel provides support for the latest ACPI subsystem, EVMS, ECC
(required for HA Linux systems), Encrypted Loopback devices, NTFS, Win4Lin
and XFS. It also contains updates for IDE, ext3 and several network cards
amongst other patches.
</p>

<p>
In other words, these sources are perfect for servers and
High-Availability systems.
</p>

<p>
The following USE-flags can be set to select optional patches:
</p>

<table>
<tr><th>Flags</th><th>Description</th></tr>
<tr><ti>crypt</ti><ti>Apply cryptographic patches</ti></tr>
</table>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>hardened-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>hardened-sources</c> provides patches for the various subprojects of
Gentoo Hardened (such as support for LSM/SELinux and GRSecurity), together 
with stability/security-enhancements. Check 
<uri>http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/</uri> for more information.
</p>

<p>
The following USE-flags can be set to select optional patches:
</p>

<table>
<tr><th>Flags</th><th>Description</th></tr>
<tr><ti>selinux</ti><ti>Substitute grSecurity with SELinux support</ti></tr>
</table>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>hardened-dev-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>hardened-dev-sources</c> use the 2.6 kernel with the patches provided by the
various subprojects of Gentoo Hardened.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>xfs-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>xfs-sources</c> contains support for EVMS, ACPI, grSecurity and, what
you probably already figured out by now, the latest XFS support patches
from the XFS Development. Please note that XFS support has been merged
into the regular 2.4 kernel tree.
</p>

<p>
More information about XFS on <uri>http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Architecture dependent kernels</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>alpha-sources</c>, <c>hppa-sources</c>, <c>hppa-dev-sources</c>,
<c>ia64-sources</c>, <c>mips-sources</c>, <c>ppc-sources</c>,
<c>pegasos-sources</c>, <c>pegasos-dev-sources</c>, <c>sparc-sources</c>
and <c>xbox-sources</c> are, as their names suggest, patched to run best on 
specific architectures.  They also contain some of the patches for hardware and 
features support from the other patch sets mentioned above and below. Kernel
sources that contains a "-dev-" means that the sources use the 2.6 kernel
instead of the 2.4 kernel.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>ppc-sources-benh</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>ppc-sources-benh</c> ebuilds provide additional hardware
support for the <c>ppc-sources</c> kernel. It is slightly more 
experimental than the <c>ppc-sources</c>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>ppc-sources-crypto</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>ppc-sources-crypto</c> ebuilds provide CryptoAPI
support for the Gentoo Linux PPC Kernel. 
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>ppc-dev-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>ppc-dev-sources</c> packages provide the most up-to-date 2.6 kernel
sources with Gentoo PPC's optimized patch for Macintosh machines.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>compaq-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>compaq-sources</c> provide RedHat's kernel sources for Alpha, 
maintained by Compaq.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>The Choices, Part II</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
Now I'm going to try to briefly describe some of the other 
<path>sys-kernel/*-sources</path> which you saw scroll by when you ran 
<c>emerge -s sources</c>. Lets take them in alphabetical order.  
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>aa-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
First we have <c>aa-sources</c>. This is Andrea Arcangeli's patch set.  
Andrea is known as an amazing coder by many other kernel hackers.  His 
kernel patch set has some of the most aggressively tuned VM (Virtual 
Memory) patches known to mankind. When I last looked, it also contained 
SGI's XFS filesystem and the O(1) scheduler by Ingo Molar (which is 
the default scheduler for Linux 2.6).  
</p>

<p>
It also provides User Mode Linux support (check out our 
<uri link="/doc/en/uml.xml">UML Guide</uri> for more information) and 
the latest TUX Webserver (an in-kernel webserver).
</p>

<p>
If you have Memory Management troubles with other kernels, 
<c>aa-sources</c> can be your solution. If you want to optimize Linux's
Memory Management for your system, <c>aa-sources</c> is <e>definitely</e>
what you need.
</p>

<p>
Visit 
<uri>http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/andrea/kernels/v2.4</uri>
for more information about all the patches in these kernel sources.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>ck-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>ck-sources</c> is Con Kolivas's kernel patch set.  This kernel is 
<e>HIGHLY</e> tuned for desktop performance at the expense of 
throughput and some of the scheduler's ability to prioritize 
applications.  Con Kolivas benchmarks kernels to find the best 
combination of features for desktop use.  See 
<uri>http://kernel.kolivas.org</uri> for more information on Con and his
patches.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>gaming-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>gaming-sources</c> are based on <c>ck-sources</c> and are therefore 
tuned for high performance. They also contain patches for the latest 
game-related hardware (graphic cards, sound cards, and such). 
</p>

<p>
If you are a hardcore gamer, this is your choice.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>grsec-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>grsec-sources</c> kernel source is patched with the latest GRSecurity
updates (GRSecurity version 1.9 and up) which includes, amongst other
security-related patches, support for PaX.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>mm-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>mm-sources</c> are based on the <c>development-sources</c> and
contain Andrew Morton's patch set. It assembles several other patches,
like ext2/3 Extended Attributes and Access Control Lists, Page Table
Sharing, the Orlov Allocator, non-linear mapping behaviour, etc into one
patch set.
</p>

<p>
If you really want to live on the edge and you think 
<c>development-sources</c> are for wussies, then try out
<c>mm-sources</c>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>openmosix-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>openmosix-sources</c> are patched to support the openMosix system 
(like MOSIX but Open Source).  For more information see 
<uri>http://www.openmosix.org</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>pac-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>pac-sources</c> kernel tree is patched with Bernhard Rosenkraenzer's
(bero) patches.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>planet-ccrma-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
This kernel source contains the Linux Kernel source for the version of the
Redhat Linux Kernel modified by the Planet CCRMA (custom audio upgrade) project.
</p>

<p>
More information can be found at <uri>http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>selinux-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>selinux-sources</c> from <uri>http://www.nsa.gov/selinux</uri> are 
patches for the security conscious to support the LSM (Linux Security 
Modules) and the Flask Security Architecture.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>usermode-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>usermode-sources</c> are the User Mode Linux kernel patches.  This 
kernel is designed to allow Linux to run within Linux to run within Linux
to ... User Mode Linux is intended for testing and virtual server support.
For more information about this amazing tribute to the stability and 
scalability of Linux, see <uri>http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net</uri>. 
</p>

<p>
For more information on UML and Gentoo, read the 
<uri link="/doc/en/uml.xml">Gentoo UML Guide</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>win4lin-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>win4lin-sources</c> are patched to support the userland win4lin tools 
that allow Linux users to run many Microsoft Windows (TM) applications
at almost native speeds.  See <uri>http://www.netraverse.com/</uri> for more 
information.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>wolk-sources</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>wolk-sources</c> contains the <e>Working Overloaded Linux Kernel</e> from 
<uri>http://sourceforge.net/projects/wolk</uri>. This kernel contains
many patches of a wide variety, all combined into the kernel with
extreme care. This allows you to configure nearly every one into and out
of the kernel at compile time -- so the kernel will work with nearly any
combination of the patches.
</p>

<p>
If you need a certain combination of patches that you cannot find in other
kernel sources, WOLK is definitely worth a shot.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>
</guide>
1	swift	1.1	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2	swift	1.8	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/gentoo-kernel.xml,v 1.7 2004/06/24 12:39:58 dertobi123 Exp $ -->
3	swift	1.1
4			<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
5			<guide link="/doc/en/gentoo-kernel.xml">
6			<title>Gentoo Linux Kernel Guide</title>
7			<author title="Author">
8			<mail link="swift@gentoo.org">Sven Vermeulen</mail>
9			</author>
10			<author title="Contributor">
11			<mail link="lostlogic@gentoo.org">Brandon Low</mail>
12			</author>
13			<author title="Editor">
14			<mail link="carl@gentoo.org">Carl Anderson</mail>
15			</author>
16			<author title="Editor">
17			<mail link="peesh@gentoo.org">Jorge Paulo</mail>
18			</author>
19	bennyc	1.9	<author title="Editor">
20			<mail link="bennyc@gentoo.org">Benny Chuang</mail>
21			</author>
22	swift	1.1
23			<abstract>
24	bennyc	1.9	This document gives you an overview on all kernel sources that Gentoo
25	swift	1.1	provides through Portage.
26			</abstract>
27
28	swift	1.6	<license/>
29
30	bennyc	1.9	<version>0.5</version>
31			<date>July 3, 2004</date>
32	swift	1.1
33			<chapter>
34			<title>Introduction</title>
35			<section>
36			<body>
37
38			<p>
39			As with everything else in Gentoo Linux, the philosophy of the Gentoo
40			Kernel team is to give you, the user, as much freedom of choice as
41			possible. If you take a look at the output of <c>emerge -s sources</c>
42			you see a large variety of kernels to choose from. In this document,
43			I will attempt to give you a brief rundown of the goals of each of the
44			patch sets, which we at Gentoo design, and also explain the other kernel
45			sources we make available to you.
46			</p>
47
48			</body>
49			</section>
50			</chapter>
51
52			<chapter>
53			<title>The Choices, Part I</title>
54			<section>
55	bennyc	1.9	<title>genkernel</title>
56			<body>
57
58			<p>
59			<c>Genkernel</c> is a kernel toolset that can be used to autodetect your
60			hardware and configure your kernel automatically. This is usually recommended
61			for users who do not feel comfortable about compiling a kernel manually.
62			</p>
63
64			</body>
65			</section>
66			<section>
67	swift	1.1	<title>gentoo-sources</title>
68			<body>
69
70			<p>
71			For most users, the recommended kernel sources are the
72			<c>gentoo-sources</c>. The <c>gentoo-sources</c> package contains
73			specially tuned performance kernel patches designed to optimize tasks
74			such as compiling while listening to music and browsing the web. Most
75			of you who are new to Gentoo have probably never run a system where you
76			are regularly compiling many packages from source while you are doing your
77			normal everyday tasks on your computer.
78			You may find that if you use the <c>vanilla-sources</c> (the official
79			kernel sources released from <uri>http://www.kernel.org</uri>) normal tasks --
80			such as listening to music, moving your mouse and the like -- may appear
81			jumpy when you are compiling packages.
82			</p>
83
84			<p>
85			The <c>gentoo-sources</c> contain an updated ACPI subsystem and are based
86			on Con Kolivas' high-performance kernel patches (<c>ck-sources</c>). We also
87			support grSecurity (a set of security-related patches with support for
88			ACLs), EVMS(2) (a highly flexible storage management filesystem with easy
89			partition resizing), JFS (IBM's high-performance filesystem), the latest
90			NTFS drivers, and more.
91			</p>
92
93			<p>
94			Because the <c>gentoo-sources</c> are targeted at full performance, they are
95			also very good for gaming purposes.
96			</p>
97
98			</body>
99			</section>
100			<section>
101			<title>vanilla-sources</title>
102			<body>
103
104			<p>
105			The next kernel sources that many of you will probably be familiar with
106			as Linux users are the <c>vanilla-sources</c>. As I mentioned briefly
107	swift	1.5	above, these are the official 2.4 kernel sources released on
108	swift	1.1	<uri>http://www.kernel.org/</uri>. These sources are maintained (contrary
109			to popular belief) not by Linus Torvalds himself, but by Marcelo
110			Tosatti. Linus is the leader of active kernel development, but as he is
111	swift	1.5	only one man, he passes off the maintenance of the stable 2.4 kernel branch
112	swift	1.1	to someone he can trust to handle it once it has stabilized. Thus, Alan
113			Cox became the maintainer of the Linux-2.2 kernel series and Marcelo
114			Tosatti became the maintainer of the Linux-2.4 kernel series. This is
115			what all the other patch sets in the 2.4 series are based on. Marcelo has
116			been doing an outstanding job with its maintenance and it can be
117			counted on for stability and up-to-date (if not bleeding edge) hardware
118			support.
119			</p>
120
121			<p>
122			<c>vanilla-sources</c> are probably the most stable sources available
123			since they are the most tested and all possible kernel sources are based
124			on them. If you don't need any of the extras that the other kernels supply
125			then the <c>vanilla-sources</c> are your thing.
126			</p>
127
128			</body>
129			</section>
130			<section>
131	bennyc	1.9	<title>gentoo-dev-sources</title>
132			<body>
133
134			<p>
135			The <c>gentoo-dev-sources</c> ebuild includes the most up-to-date 2.6 kernel
136			with Gentoo's optimized performance patches.
137			</p>
138
139			</body>
140			</section>
141			<section>
142	swift	1.5	<title>development-sources</title>
143			<body>
144
145			<p>
146	bennyc	1.9	The <c>development-sources</c> ebuild provides the stable 2.6 Linux kernel. As
147			opposed to what the name might suggest this kernel source is completely stable
148			and production-ready. This is the official 2.6 kernel released on
149			<uri>http://www.kernel.org/</uri>.
150	swift	1.5	</p>
151
152			</body>
153			</section>
154			<section>
155	swift	1.1	<title>gs-sources</title>
156			<body>
157
158			<p>
159			For users to whom desktop interactive performance comes as a secondary
160			priority to reliability and hardware support, we have the
161			<c>gs-sources</c>. GS stands for Gentoo Stable (creative, aren't we?).
162			This patch set is tuned and tested to provide the best support for the
163			latest hardware and ensures that your mission critical servers will be
164			up when you need them. This kernel doesn't have some of the most
165			aggressive performance tuning patches from the <c>gentoo-sources</c>,
166			but rest assured, the great performance that you know and love from the
167			vanilla kernels are alive and well. Where possible and without
168			compromising stability we add server related performance patches.
169			</p>
170
171			<p>
172			This kernel provides support for the latest ACPI subsystem, EVMS, ECC
173			(required for HA Linux systems), Encrypted Loopback devices, NTFS, Win4Lin
174			and XFS. It also contains updates for IDE, ext3 and several network cards
175			amongst other patches.
176			</p>
177
178			<p>
179			In other words, these sources are perfect for servers and
180			High-Availability systems.
181			</p>
182
183			<p>
184			The following USE-flags can be set to select optional patches:
185			</p>
186
187			<table>
188			<tr><th>Flags</th><th>Description</th></tr>
189			<tr><ti>crypt</ti><ti>Apply cryptographic patches</ti></tr>
190			</table>
191
192			</body>
193			</section>
194			<section>
195			<title>hardened-sources</title>
196			<body>
197
198			<p>
199			<c>hardened-sources</c> provides patches for the various subprojects of
200	swift	1.5	Gentoo Hardened (such as support for LSM/SELinux and GRSecurity), together
201			with stability/security-enhancements. Check
202	swift	1.1	<uri>http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/</uri> for more information.
203			</p>
204
205			<p>
206			The following USE-flags can be set to select optional patches:
207			</p>
208
209			<table>
210			<tr><th>Flags</th><th>Description</th></tr>
211			<tr><ti>selinux</ti><ti>Substitute grSecurity with SELinux support</ti></tr>
212			</table>
213
214			</body>
215			</section>
216			<section>
217	bennyc	1.9	<title>hardened-dev-sources</title>
218			<body>
219
220			<p>
221			<c>hardened-dev-sources</c> use the 2.6 kernel with the patches provided by the
222			various subprojects of Gentoo Hardened.
223			</p>
224
225			</body>
226			</section>
227			<section>
228	swift	1.1	<title>xfs-sources</title>
229			<body>
230
231			<p>
232			<c>xfs-sources</c> contains support for EVMS, ACPI, grSecurity and, what
233			you probably already figured out by now, the latest XFS support patches
234	dertobi123	1.7	from the XFS Development. Please note that XFS support has been merged
235			into the regular 2.4 kernel tree.
236	swift	1.1	</p>
237
238			<p>
239			More information about XFS on <uri>http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/</uri>.
240			</p>
241
242			</body>
243			</section>
244			<section>
245			<title>Architecture dependent kernels</title>
246			<body>
247
248			<p>
249	bennyc	1.9	<c>alpha-sources</c>, <c>hppa-sources</c>, <c>hppa-dev-sources</c>,
250			<c>ia64-sources</c>, <c>mips-sources</c>, <c>ppc-sources</c>,
251			<c>pegasos-sources</c>, <c>pegasos-dev-sources</c>, <c>sparc-sources</c>
252			and <c>xbox-sources</c> are, as their names suggest, patched to run best on
253	swift	1.5	specific architectures. They also contain some of the patches for hardware and
254	bennyc	1.9	features support from the other patch sets mentioned above and below. Kernel
255			sources that contains a "-dev-" means that the sources use the 2.6 kernel
256			instead of the 2.4 kernel.
257	swift	1.1	</p>
258
259			</body>
260			</section>
261			<section>
262			<title>ppc-sources-benh</title>
263			<body>
264
265			<p>
266			The <c>ppc-sources-benh</c> ebuilds provide additional hardware
267			support for the <c>ppc-sources</c> kernel. It is slightly more
268			experimental than the <c>ppc-sources</c>.
269			</p>
270
271			</body>
272			</section>
273			<section>
274			<title>ppc-sources-crypto</title>
275			<body>
276
277			<p>
278			The <c>ppc-sources-crypto</c> ebuilds provide CryptoAPI
279	swift	1.8	support for the Gentoo Linux PPC Kernel.
280	swift	1.1	</p>
281
282			</body>
283			</section>
284			<section>
285	bennyc	1.9	<title>ppc-dev-sources</title>
286	swift	1.1	<body>
287
288			<p>
289	bennyc	1.9	The <c>ppc-dev-sources</c> packages provide the most up-to-date 2.6 kernel
290			sources with Gentoo PPC's optimized patch for Macintosh machines.
291	swift	1.1	</p>
292
293			</body>
294			</section>
295			<section>
296			<title>compaq-sources</title>
297			<body>
298
299			<p>
300			The <c>compaq-sources</c> provide RedHat's kernel sources for Alpha,
301			maintained by Compaq.
302			</p>
303
304			</body>
305			</section>
306			</chapter>
307
308			<chapter>
309			<title>The Choices, Part II</title>
310			<section>
311			<body>
312
313			<p>
314			Now I'm going to try to briefly describe some of the other
315			<path>sys-kernel/*-sources</path> which you saw scroll by when you ran
316			<c>emerge -s sources</c>. Lets take them in alphabetical order.
317			</p>
318
319			</body>
320			</section>
321			<section>
322			<title>aa-sources</title>
323			<body>
324
325			<p>
326			First we have <c>aa-sources</c>. This is Andrea Arcangeli's patch set.
327			Andrea is known as an amazing coder by many other kernel hackers. His
328			kernel patch set has some of the most aggressively tuned VM (Virtual
329			Memory) patches known to mankind. When I last looked, it also contained
330	swift	1.5	SGI's XFS filesystem and the O(1) scheduler by Ingo Molar (which is
331			the default scheduler for Linux 2.6).
332	swift	1.1	</p>
333
334			<p>
335			It also provides User Mode Linux support (check out our
336			<uri link="/doc/en/uml.xml">UML Guide</uri> for more information) and
337			the latest TUX Webserver (an in-kernel webserver).
338			</p>
339
340			<p>
341			If you have Memory Management troubles with other kernels,
342			<c>aa-sources</c> can be your solution. If you want to optimize Linux's
343			Memory Management for your system, <c>aa-sources</c> is <e>definitely</e>
344			what you need.
345			</p>
346
347			<p>
348			Visit
349			<uri>http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/andrea/kernels/v2.4</uri>
350			for more information about all the patches in these kernel sources.
351			</p>
352
353			</body>
354			</section>
355			<section>
356			<title>ck-sources</title>
357			<body>
358
359			<p>
360			<c>ck-sources</c> is Con Kolivas's kernel patch set. This kernel is
361			<e>HIGHLY</e> tuned for desktop performance at the expense of
362			throughput and some of the scheduler's ability to prioritize
363			applications. Con Kolivas benchmarks kernels to find the best
364			combination of features for desktop use. See
365			<uri>http://kernel.kolivas.org</uri> for more information on Con and his
366			patches.
367			</p>
368
369			</body>
370			</section>
371			<section>
372	swift	1.5	<title>gaming-sources</title>
373	swift	1.1	<body>
374
375			<p>
376	swift	1.5	<c>gaming-sources</c> are based on <c>ck-sources</c> and are therefore
377			tuned for high performance. They also contain patches for the latest
378			game-related hardware (graphic cards, sound cards, and such).
379	swift	1.1	</p>
380
381			<p>
382	swift	1.5	If you are a hardcore gamer, this is your choice.
383	swift	1.1	</p>
384
385			</body>
386			</section>
387			<section>
388	swift	1.5	<title>grsec-sources</title>
389	swift	1.1	<body>
390
391			<p>
392	swift	1.5	The <c>grsec-sources</c> kernel source is patched with the latest GRSecurity
393			updates (GRSecurity version 1.9 and up) which includes, amongst other
394			security-related patches, support for PaX.
395	swift	1.1	</p>
396
397			</body>
398			</section>
399			<section>
400			<title>mm-sources</title>
401			<body>
402
403			<p>
404			The <c>mm-sources</c> are based on the <c>development-sources</c> and
405			contain Andrew Morton's patch set. It assembles several other patches,
406			like ext2/3 Extended Attributes and Access Control Lists, Page Table
407			Sharing, the Orlov Allocator, non-linear mapping behaviour, etc into one
408			patch set.
409			</p>
410
411			<p>
412			If you really want to live on the edge and you think
413			<c>development-sources</c> are for wussies, then try out
414			<c>mm-sources</c>.
415			</p>
416
417			</body>
418			</section>
419			<section>
420			<title>openmosix-sources</title>
421			<body>
422
423			<p>
424			The <c>openmosix-sources</c> are patched to support the openMosix system
425			(like MOSIX but Open Source). For more information see
426			<uri>http://www.openmosix.org</uri>.
427			</p>
428
429			</body>
430			</section>
431			<section>
432	swift	1.5	<title>pac-sources</title>
433	swift	1.1	<body>
434
435			<p>
436	swift	1.5	The <c>pac-sources</c> kernel tree is patched with Bernhard Rosenkraenzer's
437			(bero) patches.
438	swift	1.1	</p>
439
440			</body>
441			</section>
442			<section>
443	swift	1.5	<title>planet-ccrma-sources</title>
444	swift	1.1	<body>
445
446			<p>
447	swift	1.5	This kernel source contains the Linux Kernel source for the version of the
448			Redhat Linux Kernel modified by the Planet CCRMA (custom audio upgrade) project.
449			</p>
450
451			<p>
452			More information can be found at <uri>http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/</uri>.
453	swift	1.1	</p>
454
455			</body>
456			</section>
457			<section>
458			<title>selinux-sources</title>
459			<body>
460
461			<p>
462			<c>selinux-sources</c> from <uri>http://www.nsa.gov/selinux</uri> are
463			patches for the security conscious to support the LSM (Linux Security
464			Modules) and the Flask Security Architecture.
465			</p>
466
467			</body>
468			</section>
469			<section>
470			<title>usermode-sources</title>
471			<body>
472
473			<p>
474			<c>usermode-sources</c> are the User Mode Linux kernel patches. This
475			kernel is designed to allow Linux to run within Linux to run within Linux
476			to ... User Mode Linux is intended for testing and virtual server support.
477			For more information about this amazing tribute to the stability and
478			scalability of Linux, see <uri>http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net</uri>.
479			</p>
480
481			<p>
482			For more information on UML and Gentoo, read the
483			<uri link="/doc/en/uml.xml">Gentoo UML Guide</uri>.
484			</p>
485
486			</body>
487			</section>
488			<section>
489			<title>win4lin-sources</title>
490			<body>
491
492			<p>
493			<c>win4lin-sources</c> are patched to support the userland win4lin tools
494			that allow Linux users to run many Microsoft Windows (TM) applications
495			at almost native speeds. See <uri>http://www.netraverse.com/</uri> for more
496			information.
497			</p>
498
499			</body>
500			</section>
501			<section>
502			<title>wolk-sources</title>
503			<body>
504
505			<p>
506			<c>wolk-sources</c> contains the <e>Working Overloaded Linux Kernel</e> from
507			<uri>http://sourceforge.net/projects/wolk</uri>. This kernel contains
508			many patches of a wide variety, all combined into the kernel with
509			extreme care. This allows you to configure nearly every one into and out
510			of the kernel at compile time -- so the kernel will work with nearly any
511			combination of the patches.
512			</p>
513
514			<p>
515			If you need a certain combination of patches that you cannot find in other
516			kernel sources, WOLK is definitely worth a shot.
517			</p>
518
519			</body>
520			</section>
521			</chapter>
522			</guide>