From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752948AbZEYPQ4 (ORCPT ); Mon, 25 May 2009 11:16:56 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751798AbZEYPQt (ORCPT ); Mon, 25 May 2009 11:16:49 -0400 Received: from mx-out.daemonmail.net ([216.104.160.38]:39902 "EHLO mx-out.daemonmail.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751600AbZEYPQs (ORCPT ); Mon, 25 May 2009 11:16:48 -0400 From: "Michael S. Zick" Reply-To: lkml@morethan.org To: Jonathan Corbet Subject: Re: What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev? Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 10:16:43 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.9 Cc: Rik van Riel , John Walsh , linux-kernel References: <9f7f2c020905221910m2ffe4c53v8fd5dbc6cd236602@mail.gmail.com> <4A1819CB.9010104@redhat.com> <20090525090112.3919d117@bike.lwn.net> In-Reply-To: <20090525090112.3919d117@bike.lwn.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200905251016.46366.lkml@morethan.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon May 25 2009, Jonathan Corbet wrote: > On Sat, 23 May 2009 11:44:11 -0400 > Rik van Riel wrote: > > > John Walsh wrote: > > > What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev? > > > > If you want to learn more about the system than > > anybody should ever need to know, you can stick > > with a bleeding-edge development distro like > > Fedora Rawhide, Mandriva Cooker or Debian Unstable. > > I do the bulk of my work on such distributions, but if you're really > wanting to get started with *kernel* development, there is one thing to > be aware of: development distributions can be an independent source of > instability/weirdness in a system. If you're at an early stage with the > kernel, you may want to minimize the number of variables which can be > changing at once. So it might make more sense to base your work on a > distribution which is not changing underneath you. > One of the major "outside" variables is the tool-chain you use - - For that reason, I suggest you use one of the "Build From Source" distributions. At least you know your tool chain is working. ;) Personally, I use both 32-bit and 64-bit Gentoo. Also, I avoid doing any updates that would change the tool chain while in the midst of trouble shooting something. Just keep your hands off of the --update button. ;) Currently (both flavors, 32/64): gen2-32# gcc-config -l [1] i686-pc-linux-gnu-4.1.2 * [2] i686-pc-linux-gnu-4.3.2 The 4.1.2 tool chain is "good" across the board for all Gentoo archs. The 4.3.2 tool chain is not marked as "good" for hp-parisc. Mike > jon > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ > >