Compiling it is when you, well, compile it Initial or defualt kernel is what comes with the distro and an update is just an update, precompiled (with stuff you don't need). With a compiled kernel you tend to compile a custom kernel to suit your machine. This might include certain patches, but mostly it just a somewhat more lean kernel that just has the things you need compiled in.

I've only compiled 2.6 kernels. I guess around 15 times for friends as well as myself. It gets easier the more you do it.

First compiled a kernel 10 - 11 years ago (slackware 2.3, kernel 1.2.8).
Took all night (+/- 14 hours) to compile, now it takes 15 minutes.......

I still like to 'play' with kernels.

spooon: yeah, that's the initial kernel, the first kernel that comes with the distro, the one that makes you boot. If it's your only one you ever use, and never have compiled a kernel, that option in the poll is for you.

I was surprised that compiling a kernel was very easy. A couple of makes later, a grub adjustment, voila! Kernel!

I successfully compiled the 2.4.27 kernel by following the excellent "cookbook" in the Debian Reference manual (after much confusion and missteps from web page articles I had googled). I think I did it to include sound functionality originally but there was so much more I learned about by going through the "menuconfig" stuff and then I replaced LILO with GRUB. Had to unset the 'CD' or 'CDPATH' variable that I was putting in the
.bashrc to get the compiles to complete but after that it went right on through.

BIG HUGE RUSH WHEN IT BOOTS UP! :-D Also, it runs VERY efficiently on my slowest machine, a 433Mh eMachine, all the while running 160-170 processes including many server processes, as opposed to the 35-60 Windoze bloatware "support" an application processes on WinXP running on machines with up to 7 times the speed.

Being a man, successfully building and booting an OS is probably the closest I will get to having a baby LOL

I just built a 2.6.16.9 kernel last night so add one to my tally.

Peace...

This forum could use some more talk from real men.
You get the "Man of the Week" award

Haha, that's why I use Slackware, build my own kernel, put together my own GUI, and try to customize everything to an insane degree.

I've probably built my kernel 6 or 7 times now, at first just for the fun of it (well, the first few times, since I didn't get it right the first time and it filled the screen with garbage when I booted it from LILO), then after that just because there was something else I needed that I'd left out of the last build...or sometimes I'd just be bored and decide to rebuild my kernel for the heck of it (it only takes ~10 minutes anyways). I still get a kick out of watching my custom-configured kernel actually boot and not panic and descend into an infinite loop, though.

burntfuse: in 30-40 times of compilling the kernel, I've got only 4 or 5 that were bad ones (forgot to include USB drivers, my laptop keyboard being USB...)

How do you do it to crash and oops your kernel like that? If you write your own modules, I advise against while(1){} lol

I'm not really sure how I did it...but I have caused kernel panics by forgetting to include the reiserfs drivers (which all my drives are formatted with - "wait, but the driver's on the disk, why won't it load it?"). *hits self on head* I don't even have the excuse of added custom code which could make it unstable. I've done things like your while(1){} in programs though, so I'll have to be really careful if I ever start writing modules.

I've done the same thing, not adding reiserfs support for my root partition. I've found compiling addictive, though I'm not a programmer and only really understand bash scripts, I love seeing the fruits of someones hard labour whizzing up the terminal; if a make error occurs due to a dependancy problem or some such thing there is always a clear and sometimes witty remark included inspiring me to compile more stuff until it works. Madness really but so intriguing you have to see it through.

Tuttle: I see what you mean

I rather compile if it's small packages (say: wesnoth) instead of getting the (outdated) debian package, or whatever distro I'm using that year.

LOL While I don't share your full enthusiasm, I tend to be in the same boat. In fact, I'm wading through this right now. I've got enough of the system built that I can run Mozilla Thunderbird and Firefox but still no xmms, gimp, OO or AbiWord, gaim, and the version of Enlightenment DR17 I've got running has hardly and E apps for it, so it's not very functional (yet).

Hopefully, I'll be back to normal in the next couple of weeks.

Peace...

You are missing my response on your poll.
I use the distributions kernel and keep up on the upgrades. Perhaps this is what you meant with "I always use the distro's initial kernel" but it is not accurate.
I have compiled kernels for LFS, homemade floppy disks, and etc but I do not find a need to recompile kernels routinely.