What kernel for best experience on notebook?

[bsander]

Hi all,

I'm planning on reinstalling Gentoo on my notebook and I'm wondering what kernel I should use for the best desktop experience? Currently I'm using gentoo-sources on it, but I heard that some other kernels are optimized to be more responsive, which I would really like because sometimes KDE feels quite slow. What kernels do you recommend? I heard that cko-sources is really good, and has support for software suspend 2 which I really like (I haven't been able to put my notebook on suspend mode yet). But someone also told me love-sources is a good kernel for desktop purposes. Are there more? What's the difference between them? And which one do you recommend?

I realize that this question may be asked several times already, but I haven't been able to find a useful thread about it. If I overlooked one, please point me to it

Thanks!

[kill]

Check them all out and see what they add. Other than better suspend functionality the rest of the additions probably won't make much difference to you. There is a lot of hype of using kernel sets like love and nitro but they can have stability issues. Also unless you actually need and will use something they offer the kernel you will build won't really be any different than one made from gentoo or vanilla sources.

Basically the differences between all these patch sets are extras that aren't in or won't be in the official kernel. Reiser4 is a good example. Pretty much every patch set has a list of the patches they include, take a look at them to see how they differ. Also research the patches that you don't understand what they do. However if you don't know what it is chances are you don't need it.

Now I'm not saying using a patch set like love or nitro is bad, I use a heavily patched kernel myself. But unless you have need for all the extras and changes its really not worth the trouble.

As far a features you would want on a notebook software suspend 2 is indeed a very nice thing to have. A lot of people also like supermount. If you use the console for any length gensplash and vesafb-tng are also handy.

[Maedhros]

Moved from Unsupported Software.

[Bot24]

I put Nitro on an old Compaq laptop. It is not true that these kernels only add new features that are only of use to some people. 4K stacks and register arguments, along with those fancy schedulers, make the laptop seem very responsive. You usually can't use 4K stacks and register arguments if you need to use precompiled kernel modules, but I don't need to since everything on this old laptop is supported by an open source driver. If only the screen worked correctly and it didn't generate as much heat...
This is one of those laptops where the screen goes completely white. It happens in Windows too, and it seems easier to recover from with some mode switching in Linux. I've read that it was because silver contacts where used instead of gold, and the silver tarnishes or something.

[kill]

I put Nitro on an old Compaq laptop. It is not true that these kernels only add new features that are only of use to some people. 4K stacks and register arguments, along with those fancy schedulers, make the laptop seem very responsive.

Exactly what I was talking about. 4k stack is part of the standard kernel. Oh, and register arguments are also part of the standard kernel. Those fancy schedulers can only be used one at a time. Plus other than the staircase scheduler which can possibly improve or reduce performance depending on the type of workload is the only scheduler nitro adds. The rest are also part of the standard kernel. Granted some updates were adds to cfq but nothing major. Nothing you have stated about your kernel configuration warrants any need for more than the base kernel because for the most part that's all your using.

Take what people say about extra patch sets speeding things up with a grain of salt 99% of the improvement is in the minds of people don't really know how the kernel works or what those patches really do. And as shown 99% of the additions won't be used except maybe by a select few.

[Bot24]

I never noticed them in the other kernels before. Maybe they weren't in there then? I haven't used an unpatched kernel in a long time.

[kill]

They are all in the 2.6 series. Except like I said the staircase scheduler.

[GaMMa]

I like Con Kolivas's kernel patches (ck-sources). They seem to be more responsive and better overall for the desktop compared to an unpatched kernel. I'm currently using cko-sources which are ck-sources overloaded, which is essentially more patches.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/ for more information.