Chapter 18. Kernel Configuration
| IN THIS CHAPTER
This chapter covers a topic that's likely to be one of the most intimidating to a newcomer to UNIX: how to configure and rebuild your kernel, the innermost core of the operating system, which interacts at the most basic level with devices and coordinates processes. This is a task that simply does not happen in the desktop PC world, where the kernel is the carefully guarded domain of the software company. However, tweaking the kernel is a necessary part of life when dealing with an open-source system under constant development, in a world in which new devices constantly demand more functionality from a kernel. Kernel configuration is no simple task, but an adventurous user can master the essentials of it without much effort or risk. Configuring the kernel is at the heart of customizing FreeBSD and other operating systems like it. A well-tuned kernel will serve 100 percent of the demands that a system and its users place on it, while eliminating all the unnecessary baggage that an unoptimized kernel might have, thus making the system operate significantly faster. This chapter provides enough insight into the kernel-configuration process to eliminate the mystery and enable you to customize your kernel to squeeze the most performance and functionality out of it that you can. |
