Baslinux mailing list

[3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org]

DAVID L. ORMAND wrote:
>
> I think the kernel has been making great strides
> in responsiveness and quality, but I suspect the 
> 2.6 kernel is too big to go on my 4Mb 486, no 
> matter how barebones I configure.

It is true that the 2.6 kernel has more overhead than the 
2.2.  However, I'm pretty sure that (with a bit of work) 
you could strip down a 2.6 enough to get it running on that 
486.  After all, the current BL3 kernel will boot in 2.5mb
RAM, so your 4mb RAM should be enough for a stripped 2.6.

> This is why BL is based on an old kernel, no?

I wanted to find the best combination of functionality and 
size.  Initially I tried doing BL3 on the latest 2.0 kernel 
(which was released at the beginning of this year), but it 
didn't support all the functionality I wanted.  So I moved 
up a notch to 2.2.  I considered using the latest version, 
but decided to maintain some continuity with BL2 by using 
2.2.16.  That makes it a bit simpler for BL2 users to use 
BL3.

There was also the practical problem of downloading the 
kernel source and fitting it into the limited space on 
my HD.  I only have a 33.6 modem, so a big download is 
not nice.  Since I already had the 2.2.16 kernel source 
(for BL2), it was the easiest option for BL3.

Cheers,
Steven