What if quwstion...

["Pete Cook" <pete.cook-at-alltracorp.com>]

I am playing with slackware and a umsdos install on 2 computers-

Has anyone thought about building some kernels the way slackware does - the
bare.i, bare.s and others? a bare.rti for a basic kernel with module support
and rt would be a nice start. Or a .tarz with the kernel and emc stuff
compiled & working.

The reason I am asking this is some experience I have had compiling
kernels - My desktop machine - which all the linux stuff seems to malign -
SIS chips, onboard everything - runs and compiles and runs the compiled
kernels just fine. My laptop - which runs win2000 - runs the slackware
generic kernels - such as bare.i & such - but it will not run the recompiled
kernels. I can coy a kernel from my desktop machine over and it will work.
 maybe the blood of a red chicken sprinkled onthe laptop...)

As to the common complaint, comment, plea for help (pick one) that often
appears -Is there a beeter source of documentation? Those of you who have
been having success have also been able to learn some of the techniques and
work-arounds over time so the learning curve has been a little less steep.
Now some of us are trying to jump in and that first plateau seems rather
daunting - learn Linux, learn the new stuff for RTLinux, Learn the new stuff
for EMC. I have looked over some of the documents and there seems to be the
assumption that the person reading them already knows what is happening and
if something is vague or missing they will know how to fill in the blanks. I
know how this happens - I have done it myself - as you get experienced you
get familiar with all the stepps and they become automatic and you no longer
think of them as steps, but some of us newbies don't know those steps and
thus we are in trouble from the git-go.

I have been able to install several non-slackware tar-zips and have things
work so that does seem to be a rather easy way for a newbie to get things
installed and working.

Thanks for your patience -

Pete Cook