Datasheet

“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 236 — #262
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9.3.2 Configuration in Text Mode
menuconfig is a more comfortable way to configure the kernel. If nec-
essary, install ncurses-devel with YaST. Start the kernel configuration
with the command make menuconfig.
For minor changes in the configuration, you do not have to go through all
the questions. Instead, use the menu to access certain sections directly. The
default settings are loaded from the file .config. To load a different con-
figuration, select ‘Load an Alternate Configuration File’ and enter the file
name.
9.3.3 Configuration in the X Window System
If you installed and configured the X Window System (package xf86) and
Tcl/Tk (tcl and tk), you can use the command make xconfig to ac-
cess a graphical user interface for the configuration. If you are not logged
in to the X Window System as root, enter the command xhost + to give
root access to the display. The default settings will be loaded from the
file .config. As the configuration with make xconfig is not as well
maintained as the other configuration possibilities, run the command
make oldconfig after using this configuration method.
9.4 Kernel Modules
There is a wide variety of PC hardware components. To use this hardware
properly, you need a “driver” with which the operating system (in Linux,
the “kernel”), can access this hardware. There are basically two ways of
integrating drivers into your system:
The drivers can be compiled directly into the kernel. Such a kernel
(“in one piece”) is referred to as a monolithic kernel. Some drivers are
only available in this form.
Drivers can be loaded into the kernel on demand. In this case, the ker-
nel is referred to as a modularized kernel. This has the advantage that
only those drivers really needed are loaded and the kernel thus con-
tains nothing unnecessary.
Which drivers to compile into the kernel and which to load as run-time
modules is defined in the kernel configuration. Basically, components not
236 9.4. Kernel Modules