On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 09:56:15 -0800
Tom Spindler <dogcow@babymeat.com> wrote:

> > Would it make sense to split the INSTALL kernel by time frame?  How
> > many machines have both EISA and USB, for example?
> 
> I think this would be an excellent idea; in addition, some of the
> older cards out there have some huge firmware images - isp is around
> 380k, tigon around 152k.
> 
> Of course, I'm of the opinion that if you really need, say, puc(4) in
> your INSTALL kernel, you should really be editing your INSTALL kernel
> configs anyway...
> 
Which doesn't help the first-timer, or those without the resources or
knowledge to build their own INSTALL images.  (Aside: a web-based
service to build custom installation media would be nice, but it would
take an improbable knowledge of detailed hardware configurations by
users and/or good dependency data for some script at a web site.  It
would also require the ability to build kernels with minimal
compilation, i.e., mostly from precompiled .o files.  I suspect that
it's infeasible.)

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb