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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Those who custom configure their kernel: what did you gain? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Curious to know the coolest things you achieved by configuring your kernel. I know kernel config can be boring, but I'm hoping someone will have an impressive answer.

For me I have a very lightweight kernel that runs wayland on nvidia without any issues to date.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

I'm playing around with coreboot and that gives me ability to embed Linux kernel. The problem is we're limited by the amount of ROM chip which is between 4MiB to 16MiB depending on the specific device. The one I'm working on got 12MiB, about 3 is taken in order to boot normally, leaving me with 9 to play around.

Enter buildroot, (arguably) a Linux distro that allows you to have kernel, busybox, minimum libc, along with whatever software you'd choose.

While it's easy to include only what's needed to have a working system (busybox provides working shell as well as the coreutils), you'd need to get rid of stuff you don't need, such as drivers for hardware you wouldn't have.

Aside from that, you'd end up with better running kernel in general if you know what you're doing. I run Gentoo and have kept a working config that I tweak from time to time (especially on version upgrade).