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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/gentoo-kernel.xml,v 1.17 2004/11/02 10:34:25 swift Exp $ -->
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<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
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<guide link="/doc/en/gentoo-kernel.xml">
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<title>Gentoo Linux Kernel Guide</title>
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<author title="Author">
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<mail link="swift@gentoo.org">Sven Vermeulen</mail>
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</author>
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<author title="Contributor">
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<mail link="lostlogic@gentoo.org">Brandon Low</mail>
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</author>
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<author title="Editor">
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<mail link="dsd@gentoo.org">Daniel Drake</mail>
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</author>
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<author title="Editor">
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<mail link="carl@gentoo.org">Carl Anderson</mail>
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</author>
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<author title="Editor">
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<mail link="peesh@gentoo.org">Jorge Paulo</mail>
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</author>
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<author title="Editor">
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<mail link="bennyc@gentoo.org">Benny Chuang</mail>
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</author>
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<author title="Editor">
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<mail link="g.guidi@sns.it">Gregorio Guidi</mail>
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</author>
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<abstract>
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This document gives you an overview on all kernel sources that Gentoo
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provides through Portage.
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</abstract>
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<license/>
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<version>0.7.5</version>
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<date>November 02, 2004</date>
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<chapter>
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<title>Introduction</title>
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<section>
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<body>
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<p>
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As with everything else in Gentoo Linux, the philosophy of the Gentoo
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Kernel team is to give you, the user, as much freedom of choice as
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possible. If you take a look at the output of <c>emerge -s sources</c>
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you see a large variety of kernels to choose from. In this document,
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I will attempt to give you a brief rundown of the goals of each of the
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patch sets, which we at Gentoo design, and also explain the other kernel
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sources we make available to you.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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<chapter>
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<title>Supported kernel packages</title>
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<section>
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<title>genkernel</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>Genkernel</c> is a kernel toolset that can be used to autodetect your
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hardware and configure your kernel automatically. This is usually recommended
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for users who do not feel comfortable about compiling a kernel manually.
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</p>
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<p>
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For more information, please read the <uri link="/doc/en/genkernel.xml">Gentoo
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Linux Genkernel Guide</uri>.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>General purpose: gentoo-sources and gentoo-dev-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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For most users, the recommended kernel sources are the
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<c>gentoo-sources</c>. The <c>gentoo-sources</c> package contains various
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kernel patches, designed to improve user experience with respect to different
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areas. Speaking of <e>security</e>: you can find support for
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<uri link="http://www.grsecurity.net">grsecurity</uri>, together with other
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security enhancements and, naturally, all the recent fixes for known
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vulnerabilities. The included patches deal also with <e>performance</e>
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(including tweaks for desktop usage and support for recent hardware) and
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<e>features</e> (supermount, bootsplash, the latest NTFS drivers, and more).
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</p>
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<p>
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For users looking to take advantage of the new features, stability, and
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performance of Linux 2.6, we provide <c>gentoo-dev-sources</c>. This package
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consists of a minimal patchset providing fixes and enhancement for stability
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and security. This kernel will become our recommended default at some point
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in the near future.
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</p>
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<p>
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The <c>gentoo-sources</c> (together with <c>gentoo-dev-sources</c>) absorb
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most of the resources of the Gentoo kernel team. They are brought to you by a
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group of talented developers, which can count on the expertise of popular
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kernel hacker Greg Kroah-Hartman, maintainer of udev and responsible for the
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USB and PCI subsystems of the official linux kernel.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Plain kernels: vanilla-sources and development-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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The next kernel sources that many of you will probably be familiar with
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as Linux users are the <c>vanilla-sources</c>. These are the official 2.4
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kernel sources released on <uri>http://www.kernel.org/</uri>, maintained
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(contrary to popular belief) not by Linus Torvalds himself, but by Marcelo
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Tosatti. Linus is the leader of active kernel development, but as he is
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only one man, he passes off the maintenance of the stable 2.4 kernel branch
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to someone he can trust to handle it once it has stabilized. Thus, Alan
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Cox became the maintainer of the Linux-2.2 kernel series and Marcelo
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Tosatti became the maintainer of the Linux-2.4 kernel series. This is
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what all the other patch sets in the 2.4 series are based on. Marcelo has
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been doing an outstanding job with its maintenance and it can be
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counted on for stability and up-to-date (if not bleeding edge) hardware
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support.
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</p>
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<p>
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The <c>development-sources</c> ebuild provides the stable 2.6 Linux kernel. As
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opposed to what the name might suggest, this kernel source is completely stable
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and production-ready. This is the official 2.6 kernel released on
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<uri>http://www.kernel.org/</uri>.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>For servers: hardened-sources and hardened-dev-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>hardened-sources</c> is based on Linux 2.4 and is targetted at our users
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running Gentoo on server systems. It provides patches for the various
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subprojects of Gentoo Hardened (such as support for LSM/SELinux and
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GRSecurity), together with stability/security-enhancements. Check
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<uri>http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/</uri> for more information.
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</p>
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<p>
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<c>hardened-dev-sources</c> serves the same purpose as <c>hardened-sources</c>
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but is based on the newer Linux 2.6 kernel base.
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</p>
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<p>
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The following USE-flags can be set to select optional patches:
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</p>
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<table>
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<tr><th>Flags</th><th>Description</th></tr>
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<tr><ti>selinux</ti><ti>Substitute grSecurity with SELinux support</ti></tr>
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</table>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Architecture dependent kernels</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>alpha-sources</c>, <c>hppa-sources</c>, <c>hppa-dev-sources</c>,
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<c>mips-sources</c>, <c>pegasos-dev-sources</c>, <c>sparc-sources</c>
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and <c>xbox-sources</c> are, as their names suggest,
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are patched to run best on specific architectures. They also contain some of
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the patches for hardware and features support from the other patch sets
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mentioned above and below. Kernel sources that contains a "-dev-" means that
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the sources use the 2.6 kernel instead of the 2.4 kernel.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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<chapter>
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<title>Unsupported kernel packages</title>
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<section>
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<body>
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<p>
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Now I'm going to try to briefly describe some of the other
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<path>sys-kernel/*-sources</path> which you saw scroll by when you ran
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<c>emerge -s sources</c>. Lets take them in alphabetical order. These
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kernels are provided as a courtesy only and the various patch sets are not
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supported by ourselves.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>aa-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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First we have <c>aa-sources</c>. This is Andrea Arcangeli's patch set.
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Andrea is known as an amazing coder by many other kernel hackers. His
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kernel patch set has some of the most aggressively tuned VM (Virtual
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Memory) patches known to mankind.
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</p>
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<p>
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It also provides User Mode Linux support (check out our
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<uri link="/doc/en/uml.xml">UML Guide</uri> for more information) and
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the latest TUX Webserver (an in-kernel webserver).
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</p>
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<p>
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If you have Memory Management troubles with other kernels,
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<c>aa-sources</c> can be your solution. If you want to optimize Linux's
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Memory Management for your system, <c>aa-sources</c> is <e>definitely</e>
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what you need.
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</p>
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<p>
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Visit
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<uri>http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/andrea/kernels/v2.6</uri>
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for more information about all the patches in these kernel sources.
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</p>
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<p>
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Andrea has not been maintaining his patchsets recently, and as a result of
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this, this kernel is a bit out of date and may be removed from portage soon.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>ck-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>ck-sources</c> is Con Kolivas's kernel patch set. This kernel is
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<e>HIGHLY</e> tuned for desktop performance at the expense of
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throughput and some of the scheduler's ability to prioritize
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applications. Con Kolivas benchmarks kernels to find the best
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combination of features for desktop use. See
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<uri>http://kernel.kolivas.org</uri> for more information on Con and his
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patches.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>grsec-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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The <c>grsec-sources</c> kernel source is patched with the latest GRSecurity
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updates (GRSecurity version 2.0 and up) which includes, amongst other
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security-related patches, support for PaX.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>mm-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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The <c>mm-sources</c> are based on the <c>development-sources</c> and contain
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Andrew Morton's patch set. They include the experimental and bleeding-edge
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features that are going to be included in the official kernel (or that are
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going to be rejected because they set your box on fire). They are known to be
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always moving at a fast pace and can change radically from one week to the
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other; kernel hackers use them as a testing ground for new stuff.
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</p>
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<p>
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If you really want to live on the edge and you think
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<c>development-sources</c> are for wussies, then try out
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<c>mm-sources</c>. Be warned that this kernel is highly experimental and
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doesn't always work as expected.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>openmosix-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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The <c>openmosix-sources</c> are patched to support the openMosix system
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(like MOSIX but Open Source). For more information see
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<uri>http://www.openmosix.org</uri>.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>pac-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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The <c>pac-sources</c> kernel tree is patched with Bernhard Rosenkraenzer's
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(bero) patches. Be warned that this kernel is quite out of date and may be
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removed from portage soon.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>selinux-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>selinux-sources</c> from <uri>http://www.nsa.gov/selinux</uri> are
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patches for the security conscious to support the LSM (Linux Security
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Modules) and the Flask Security Architecture.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>usermode-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>usermode-sources</c> are the User Mode Linux kernel patches. This
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kernel is designed to allow Linux to run within Linux to run within Linux
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to ... User Mode Linux is intended for testing and virtual server support.
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For more information about this amazing tribute to the stability and
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scalability of Linux, see <uri>http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net</uri>.
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</p>
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<p>
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For more information on UML and Gentoo, read the
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<uri link="/doc/en/uml.xml">Gentoo UML Guide</uri>.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>win4lin-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>win4lin-sources</c> are patched to support the userland win4lin tools
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that allow Linux users to run many Microsoft Windows (TM) applications
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at almost native speeds. See <uri>http://www.netraverse.com/</uri> for more
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information.
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</p>
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</body>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>wolk-sources</title>
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<body>
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<p>
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<c>wolk-sources</c> contains the <e>Working Overloaded Linux Kernel</e> from
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<uri>http://sourceforge.net/projects/wolk</uri>. This kernel contains
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many patches of a wide variety, all combined into the kernel with
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extreme care. This allows you to configure nearly every one into and out
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of the kernel at compile time -- so the kernel will work with nearly any
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combination of the patches.
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</p>
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| 369 |
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<p>
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| 371 |
If you need a certain combination of patches that you cannot find in other
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kernel sources, WOLK is definitely worth a shot.
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</p>
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| 374 |
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| 375 |
</body>
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| 376 |
</section>
|
| 377 |
</chapter>
|
| 378 |
|
| 379 |
<chapter>
|
| 380 |
<title>Previously provided kernel packages</title>
|
| 381 |
<section>
|
| 382 |
<title>gaming-sources</title>
|
| 383 |
<body>
|
| 384 |
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| 385 |
<p>
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| 386 |
<c>gaming-sources</c> was a 2.4 kernel with a broken scheduler patch applied
|
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which enhanced performance in games. It was removed from portage because some
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problems accumulated, and the scheduler work being done in Linux 2.6 at the
|
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same time offered the same or even better performance.
|
| 390 |
</p>
|
| 391 |
|
| 392 |
</body>
|
| 393 |
</section>
|
| 394 |
<section>
|
| 395 |
<title>gs-sources</title>
|
| 396 |
<body>
|
| 397 |
|
| 398 |
<p>
|
| 399 |
<c>gs-sources</c>, once advertised as our server-style patch set, became a
|
| 400 |
testing ground for prerelease 2.4 kernels. Unfortunately, the maintainer
|
| 401 |
became inactive and this kernel detoriated with new system updates and
|
| 402 |
became out of date.
|
| 403 |
</p>
|
| 404 |
|
| 405 |
</body>
|
| 406 |
</section>
|
| 407 |
<section>
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| 408 |
<title>ia64-sources</title>
|
| 409 |
<body>
|
| 410 |
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| 411 |
<p>
|
| 412 |
<c>ia64-sources</c> were the IA64-specific kernel trees. They are however
|
| 413 |
obsoleted in favor of <c>development-sources</c>.
|
| 414 |
</p>
|
| 415 |
|
| 416 |
</body>
|
| 417 |
</section>
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| 418 |
</chapter>
|
| 419 |
|
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</guide>
|
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