- Joined
- Apr 1, 2024
You don't need to do it by any means.I don't see any point in "trimming" the kernel on modern hardware except in special use situations but then again I am a retarded sperg.
But it does lead to a slightly faster boot, from when the kernel starts, to when the init system start. It's not really trimming out the things you are using. Just the other drivers that aren't being used with your hardware, and the software you use. Also extra networking stuff, crypto, and especially debugging stuff.
There is a lot of debugging junk left on in most of the kernels that are getting shipped, that are only useful to people either developing the kernel, or drivers. Or are doing some kind of low level development, that need to worry about that stuff. When you disable a lot of that, you get better performance from that alone, a smaller attack surface, and if you are disabling that stuff in the first place you are building a kernel, so importantly a faster build time.
Also making things that don't need to be built into the kernel, modules. Will help with boot times. Since then they only get loaded on demand, rather than every boot always. And using faster compression algorithms. Specifically ones with a fast decompression time. Since the kernel is a self decompressing executable (or something along those lines).

