the venerable 2.0 kernel series

[Brian Densmore]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Nicol 
> 
> what are the advantages of using Linux 2.0 kernels?  The series is

The advantage to using 2.0 kernels is that you can run applications that
require the 2.0.x series kernel. A lot of the 2.2 enhancements were backported
to the 2.0 kernel. Some of the 2.4 enhancements were backported to the 2.0
kernel, but I doubt if any of the 2.6 enhancements were backported to the
the 2.0 kernel. Another advantage is memory and disk requirements are much 
smaller. Still another advantage to the 2.0 kernel has been mentioned,
size. It's a lot smaller, but not necessarily faster. Size and speed do not
necessarily go hand in hand. The 2.6 kernel has some speed enhancing 
improvements. Although the size is by default much much larger, this can be
changed to some degree by compiling a custom kernel and leaving out all of 
the code for hardware and features you do not use. If you aren't using/emulating
scsi devices there is no reason to load scsi support/drivers in the kernel. Also
compiling as much of the kernel to load as modules will reduce the kernel size.
This is something everyone *should* do with their kernel. Also turning off
debugging and stripping debugging code from the kernel and drivers will speed up
the kernel. If your system doesn't panic or crash or lock up, there is no reason
to have debugging code in there. Sure it's nice to have to give to the designers
*should* the system fail. But there is no doubt in my mind that the 2.0 kernel
would be faster on older hardware than 2.6. Some statistics on the various kernels
in regards to size:

Kernel     | Source Size
Version    | (bz2)
===========+=============
1.0        | <   1MB
1.2        |   2.3MB
2.0        | <   6MB
2.2        |  15.4MB (almost tripled)
2.4        |  30.3MB (almost doubled again)
2.6        |  35.4MB

So the 2.6 kernel source is almost six times larger in *compressed* size.
This is inclusive of *official* modules. I couldn't find any comparison of
the compiled size of the kernels. This information taken from the kernel
archives. Personally I can't see using the 2.0 except in a classroom.
I wouldn't go lower than 2.2. In fact until about 9 months ago I used 2.2
for my webserver.

JMHO,
Brian Densmore