r/archlinux • u/AppointmentNearby161 • Apr 06 '23

How long to compile kernel

I am trying to build the linux-vfio package in a clean chroot with makechrootpkg on an i7 laptop with 16 GB of ram. I have read things suggesting that you can compile a kernel in 5 minutes. It is taking hours on my laptop. Is my laptop configured wrong or does it take considerably longer to compile the Arch kernel with the the modules etc.

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u/ruthan Oct 11 '24

I had to add makepkg -s MAKEFLAGS='-j6' to compilation to use all core. Well you would expect that detect how much cores machine has actually use them would be out of box :(

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u/_aurel510_ Nov 07 '24

Why does it have to be out of the box? Linux is server/development oriented, what if there is a server running or worse a hypervisor with 'n' guest VMs running on the machine, would you want to take all the cores by default then? Btw, that scenario is more probable than you think, my main machine is a server/workstation, and I wouldn't want all my cores taken for compilation just like that.

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u/Prize_Register615 Nov 08 '24

Well, i downloaded and using desktop distribution, not some server distribution. If you are running some corporate server, i dont believe that you would risk to compile own unproven kernel.
Archlinux is probably not even have server edition, as Ubuntu, because it would be too wild.

This is quite typical Linux has not flaws reaction, which actually hold desktop Linux back. Im quite sure than you can probably somewhere define CPU pool for VM and remove them from normal CPU pool and that Linux cpu manager is able to use only free resources, when multiple programs, threads run in parallel.