Maximize Desktop Speed

Compiling your kernel isn't that difficult, but remember there's a distinct probability of hosing your machine and turning it into a paperweight. (Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. In the worst case, you simply would have to re-install Linux, and you wouldn't lose your data.) In my case, I used the YaST administration tool and installed two kernels, so I could choose either of them at boot time, and if I destroyed one, I could reboot with the other one, re-install the broken kernel and keep trying.

You need some specific packages to do this: kernel-source (the source files for the actual kernel), gcc (the compiler), ncurses (for the menus) and bzip2 (used internally to create boot images). You also need to know a bit about your hardware. Use cat /proc/cpuinfo to see how many CPUs you have and their brands, and cat /proc/meminfo for RAM information (Listing 3).

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 6
model           : 8
model name      : Mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2200+
[...some lines snipped...]

$ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:       483488 kB
MemFree:         11560 kB
Buffers:         19888 kB
Cached:         323408 kB
SwapCached:       2768 kB
Active:         166432 kB
Inactive:       230396 kB
[...more lines snipped...]

Start with a dry run and recompile the kernel without any changes, just to see if everything is set up okay. Working as root, do what's shown in Listing 4.

cd /usr/src/linux
make clean
make
make modules_install
make install

The make processes will run for a while, and although they might produce some warnings, there shouldn't be any errors. If everything still is running okay after you reboot, it means you can start experimenting; you already did a kernel build. (If things did go seriously wrong, reboot with the other kernel, re-install the thrashed kernel, fix the problem, and try a dry run again.)

Tweaking the kernel is simply a matter of choosing the appropriate options from a (large) menu. As root, do the following:

cd /usr/src/linux
make clean
make menuconfig

and you will see a screen (Figure 1) with a menu full of hundreds of options, although luckily, you will have to change only a few of them.

Figure 1. make menuconfig provides a console-like way to select kernel options.

If graphical interfaces are more your style, change the last command to make xconfig for a friendlier way of working (Figure 2).

Figure 2. make xconfig produces a friendlier, graphical way to choose kernel options.

The following are some of the options to change:

After you are done selecting options, exit the configuration program (say “yes” to save the new kernel configuration) and then do the following:

make
make modules_install
make install

Watch for unexpected error messages; there should be none. You will need to wait, as when you did with the dry run. On my laptop, the complete process requires more than 30 minutes. If you get an error message, either go back to the menu to try to fix whatever was wrong, or reboot with your backup kernel, re-install the broken kernel, and try again. If everything is okay, simply reboot, and try out your new kernel.