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Kernel Configuration Pseudo Guide
This aims to be a guide for configuring a Linux kernel for a modern
x86_64 machine containing hardware commonly found in laptops, desktops,
and other consumer computers. Note, this guide will sway more minimally,
meaning some features that are not strictly required will not be enabled.
All features will be built directly into kernel, no modules. This article
will not attempt to cover all possible configuration options, as it omits
entire sections that are not relevant on such systems, as well as some
hardware-specific configuration. Please also refer to the kernel's help text
for further information on respective options. I am not a kernel developer
and nothing here is guaranteed to be functionally accurate. If you feel
anything mentioned is wrong or should be switched around, please contact
me. This article assumes some prior knowledge of your system (eg. lspci,
lscpu, lsusb, dmidecode, /proc/devices
, etc.) and general
kernel configuration/installation, such as obtaining source, generating and
maintaining .config
, methods of configuration, compilation,
and installation. Throughout, the following acronyms will be used
- STD: recommended/standard feature that generally should be enabled
- DEV: useful for kernel development/debugging. not for general user
- VIRT: virtulalisation related options (vhost/vguest)
- OLD: modern systems generally won't need these options
- SEC: security related options that either implicate or strengthen system security
top level options
general setup
processor type and features
mitigations for speculative execution vulnerabilities
power management and acpi options
bus options
binary emulations
general architecture-dependent options
enable the block layer
executable file formats
memory management options
networking support
Top Level Options
- 64-bit kernel (
CONFIG_64BIT
): Y, STD
- Mitigations for speculative execution vulnerabilities (
CONFIG_SPECULATION_MITIGATIONS
): Y, STD
- Virtualization (
CONFIG_VIRTUALIZATION
): N, VIRT, unless needed
- Enable loadable module support (
CONFIG_MODULES
): N, everything built into kernel
- Enable the block layer (
CONFIG_BLOCK
): Y, STD, need to mount disks
- Networking support (
CONFIG_NET
): Y, unless no need for network
- Cryptographic API (
CONFIG_CRYPTO
): Y, SEC
General setup
- Compile also drivers which will not load (
CONFIG_COMPILE_TEST
): N, DEV
- Compile the kernel with warnings as errors (
CONFIG_WERROR
): Y, STD
- Local version - append to kernel release (
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION
): empty, useful for git bisect
- Automatically append version information (
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO
): N, DEV
- Build ID Salt (
CONFIG_BUILD_SALT
): empty, SEC
- Kernel compression mode: ZSTD or Gzip for compatibility
- Default init path (
CONFIG_DEFAULT_INIT
): empty, EMB
- Default hostname (
CONFIG_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME
): empty, entre your machine's name if you'd like
- System V IPC (
CONFIG_SYSVIPC
): Y, STD
- POSIX Message Queues (
CONFIG_POSIX_MQUEUE
): N, not strictly necessary
- General notification queue (
CONFIG_WATCH_QUEUE
): N, not strictly necessary
- Enable process_vm_readv/writev syscalls (
CONFIG_CROSS_MEMORY_ATTACH
): N, not strictly necessary
- uselib syscall (
CONFIG_USELIB
): N, OLD
- Auditing support (
CONFIG_AUDIT
): N, not strictly necessary
-
Timers subsystem
- Timer tick handling: Idle dynticks system (tickless idle)
- Old Idle dynticks config (
CONFIG_NO_HZ
): N, OLD
- High Resolution Timer Support (
CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS
): Y, STD
- Clocksource watchdog maximum allowable skew (
CONFIG_CLOCKSOURCE_WATCHDOG_MAX_SKEW_US
): 100
-
BPF subsystem
- Enable bpf() system call (
CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
): N, not necessary if you do not have any programs that utilise
- Preemption Model: Preemptible Kernel (Low-Latency Desktop)
- Preemption behaviour defined on boot (
CONFIG_PREEMPT_DYNAMIC
): N
- Core Scheduling for SMT (
CONFIG_SCHED_CORE
): Y, STD
-
CPU/Task time and stats accounting
- Cputime accounting: Simple tick based cputime accounting
- Fine granularity task level IRQ time accounting (
CONFIG_IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING
): N, DEV
- BSD Process Accounting (
CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT
): N
- Export task/process statistics through netlink (
CONFIG_TASKSTATS
): N
- Pressure stall information tracking (
CONFIG_PSI
): N
- CPU isolation (
CONFIG_CPU_ISOLATION
): N, EMB
-
RCU subsystem
- Make expert-level adjustments to RCU configuration (
CONFIG_RCU_EXPERT
): N, DEV
- Kernel .config support (
CONFIG_IKCONFIG
): Y, STD
- Enable access to .config through /proc/config.gz (
CONFIG_IKCONFIG_PROC
): Y, STD
- Enable kernel headers through /sys/kernel/kheaders.tar.xz (
CONFIG_IKHEADERS
): N
- Kernel log buffer size (
CONFIG_LOG_BUF_SHIFT
): 18
- CPU kernel log buffer size contribution (
CONFIG_LOG_CPU_MAX_BUF_SHIFT
): 12
-
Scheduler features
- Enable utilization clamping for RT/FAIR tasks (
CONFIG_UCLAMP_TASK
): N, DEV
-
Control Group support (
CONFIG_CGROUPS
): Y, STD
- Favor dynamic modification latency reduction (
CONFIG_CGROUP_FAVOR_DYNMODS
): N
- Memory controller (
CONFIG_MEMCG
): Y, STD
- IO controller (
CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP
): Y, STD
-
CPU controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_SCHED
): Y, STD
- Group scheduling for SCHED_OTHER (
FAIR_GROUP_SCHED
): Y, STD
- CPU bandwidth provisioning for FAIR_GROUP_SCHED (
CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH
): N
- Group scheduling for SCHED_RR/FIFO (
CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED
): N
- PIDs controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_PIDS
): N
- RDMA controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_RDMA
): N
- Freezer controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_FREEZER
): N
- Cpuset controller (
CONFIG_CPUSETS
): N, only useful on NUMA machine
- Device Controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_DEVICE
): N
- Simple CPU accounting controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_CPUACCT
): Y, STD
- Perf controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_PERF
): N
- Misc resource controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_MISC
): Y
- Debug controller (
CONFIG_CGROUP_DEBUG
): N, DEV
-
Namespaces support (
CONFIG_NAMESPACES
): Y, STD, used heavily by web browsers
- UTS namespace (
CONFIG_UTS_NS
): Y
- TIME namespace (
CONFIG_TIME_NS
): Y
- IPC namespace (
CONFIG_IPC_NS
): Y
- User namespace (
CONFIG_USER_NS
): Y
- PID Namespaces (
CONFIG_PID_NS
): Y
- Network namespace (
CONFIG_NET_NS
): Y
- Checkpoint/restore support (
CONFIG_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE
): N, VIRT
- Automatic process group scheduling (
CONFIG_SCHED_AUTOGROUP
): N, OLD, Systemd/OpenRC handle this
- Kernel -> userspace relay support (
CONFIG_RELAY
): Y, STD
- Initial RAM filesystem and RAM disk (
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD
): N, not strictly necessary
- Boot config support (
CONFIG_BOOT_CONFIG
): N, EMB
- Preserve cpio archive mtimes in initramfs (
CONFIG_INITRAMFS_PRESERVE_MTIME
): N, without initramfs...
- Compiler optimization level: Optimize for performance (-O2)
- Configure standard kernel features (
CONFIG_EXPERT
): N, DEV/EMB, mostly syscalls
- Enable kcmp() system call (
CONFIG_KCMP
): Y
- Enable rseq() system call (
CONFIG_RSEQ
): Y
- Enable cachestat() system call (
CONFIG_CACHESTAT_SYSCALL
): Y
- Enabled debugging of rseq() system call (
CONFIG_DEBUG_RSEQ
): N, DEV
- PC/104 support (
CONFIG_PC104
): N, EMB
-
Kernel Performance Events and Counters
- Kernel Performance events and counters (
CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS
): Y, STD
- Debug: use vmalloc to back perf mmap() buffers (
CONFIG_DEBUG_PERF_USE_VMALLOC
): N, DEV
- Profiling support (
CONFIG_PROFILING
): N, DEV
- Kexec and crash features: None
Processor type and features
- Symmetric multi-processing support (
CONFIG_SMP
): Y, STD, all modern CPUs are multi-core
- Enable MPS table (
CONFIG_X86_MPARSE
): N, OLD
- x86 CPU resource control support (
CONFIG_X86_CPU_RESCTRL
): N, VIRT
- Support for extended (non-PC) x86 platforms (
CONFIG_X86_EXTENDED_PLATFORM
): N, EMB
- Intel Low Power Subsystem Support (
CONFIG_X86_INTEL_LPSS
): Y, if you have Haswell and later CPU
- AMD ACPI2Platform devices support (
CONFIG_X86_AMD_PLATFORM_DEVICE
): N
- Intel SoC IOSF Sideband support (
CONFIG_IOSF_MBI
): Y, STD
- Single-depth WCHAN output (
CONFIG_SCHED_OMIT_FRAME_POINTER
): Y, STD
- Linux guest support (
CONFIG_HYPERVISOR_GUEST
): N, VIRT
- Processor family: Core 2/newer Xeon (or Generic-x86-64 if unsure)
- Supported processor vendors (
CONFIG_PROCESSOR_SELECT
): N, EMB
- Enable DMI scanning (
CONFIG_DMI
): Y, STD
- Old AMD GART IOMMU support (
CONFIG_GART_IOMMU
): N, OLD
- Enable Maximum number of SMP Processors and NUMA Nodes (
CONFIG_MAXSMP
): N, DEV
- Maximum number of CPUs (
CONFIG_NR_CPUS
): sockets * cores * threads
- Cluster scheduler support (
CONFIG_SCHED_CLUSTER
): Y, STD
- Multi-core scheduler support (
CONFIG_SCHED_MC
): Y, STD
- CPU core priorities scheduler support (
CONFIG_SCHED_MC_PRIO
): Y, STD
- Reroute for broken boot IRQs (
CONFIG_X86_REROUTE_FOR_BROKEN_BOOT_IRQS
): N, OLD
- Machine Check / overheating reporting (
CONFIG_X86_MCE
): Y, STD
- Support for deprecated /dev/mcelog character device (
CONFIG_X86_MCELOG_LEGACY
): N, OLD
- Intel/AMD MCE features (
CONFIG_X86_MCE_INTEL/AMD
): Y, STD, choose based on your processor
-
Performance monitoring
- Intel uncore performance events (
CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS_INTEL_UNCORE
): Y, STD, for Intel
- Intel/AMD rapl performance events (
CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS_INTEL_RAPL
): Y, STD
- Intel cstate performance events (
CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS_INTEL_CSTATE
): Y, STD, for Intel
- AMD Processor Power Reporting Mechanism (
CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS_AMD_POWER
): Y, STD, for AMD
- AMD Uncore performance events (
CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS_AMD_POWER
): Y, STD, for AMD
- Enable vsyscall emulation (
CONFIG_X86_VSYSCALL_EMULATION
): N
- IOPERM and IOPL Emulation (
CONFIG_X86_IOPL_IOPERM
): N, SEC, not strictly necessary
- Late microcode loading (
CONFIG_MICROCODE_LATE_LOADING
): N
- /dev/cpu/*/msr - Model-specific register support (
CONFIG_X86_MSR
): Y, STD
- /dev/cpu/*/cpuid - CPU information support (
CONFIG_X86_CPUID
): Y, STD
- Enable 5-level page tables support (
CONFIG_X86_5LEVEL
): N, for machines with large (TBs) amounts of memory
- AMD Secure Memory Encryption (SME) support (
CONFIG_AMD_MEM_ENCRYPT
): Y, for AMD
- NUMA Memory Allocation and Scheduler Support (
CONFIG_NUMA
): N, unless you have multi socket CPU
- Check for low memory corruption (
CONFIG_X86_CHECK_BIOS_CORRUPTION
): N
- MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support (
CONFIG_MTRR
): Y, STD
- MTRR cleanup support (
CONFIG_MTRR_SANITIZER
): Y, STD
- MTRR cleanup enable value (0-1) (
CONFIG_MTRR_SANITIZER_ENABLE_DEFAULT
): 1, for true
- MTRR cleanup spare reg num (0-7) (
CONFIG_MTRR_SANITIZER_SPARE_REG_NR_DEFAULT
): 1
- x86 PAT support (
CONFIG_X86_PAT
): Y, STD
- User Mode Instruction Prevention (
CONFIG_X86_UMIP
): Y
- Indirect Branch Tracking (
CONFIG_X86_KERNEL_IBT
): N, SEC
- Memory Protection Keys (
CONFIG_X86_INTEL_MEMORY_PROTECTION_KEYS
): Y, STD
- TSX enable mode: auto
- X86 userspace shadow stack (
CONFIG_X86_USER_SHADOW_STACK
): N, SEC
- EFI runtime service support (
CONFIG_EFI
): Y, STD
- EFI stub support (
CONFIG_EFI_STUB
): N, only if you boot kernel directly
- EFI handover protocol (
CONFIG_EFI_HANDOVER_PROTOCOL
): N, OLD
- EFI mixed-mode support (
CONFIG_EFI_MIXED
): N, only relevant (but still unneeded) on Apple hardware
- Enable EFI fake memory map (
CONFIG_EFI_FAKE_MEMMAP
): N
- Export EFI runtime maps to sysfs (
CONFIG_EFI_RUNTIME_MAP
): N
- Timer frequency: 100 HZ for server, 300 HZ for laptop, 1000 HZ for low-latency requirements
- Physical address where the kernel is loaded (
CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START
): 0x1000000
- Build a relocatable kernel (
CONFIG_RELOCATABLE
): Y, STD
- Randomize the address of the kernel image (KASLR) (
CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_BASE
): Y, SEC
- Alignment value to which the kernel should be aligned (
CONFIG_PHYSICAL_ALIGN
): 0x200000
- Randomize the kernel memory sections (
CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_BASE
): Y, SEC
- Physcial memory mapping padding (
CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_MEMORY_PHYSICAL_PADDING
): 0x00
- Linear Address Masking support (
CONFIG_ADDRESS_MASKING
): N
- vsyscall table for legacy applications: None
- Built-in kernel command line (
CONFIG_CMDLINE_BOOL
): N, unless booting kernel directly
- Enable the LDT (local descriptor table) (
CONFIG_MODIFY_LDT_SYSCALL
): N, EMB
- Enforce strict size checking for sigalstack (
CONFIG_STRICT_SIGALSTACK_SIZE
): N, DEV
Mitigations for speculative execution vulnerabilities
- Remove the kernel mapping in user mode (
CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_ISOLATION
): Y
- Avoid speculative indirect branches in kernel (
CONFIG_RETPOLINE
): Y
- Enable return-thunks (
CONFIG_RETHUNK
): Y
- Enable UNRET on kernel entry (
CONFIG_CPU_UNRET_ENTRY
): Y
- Mitigate RSB underflow with call depth tracking (
CONFIG_CALL_DEPTH_TRACKING
): Y
- Enable call thunks and call depth tracking debugging (
CONFIG_CALL_RETHUNKS_DEBUG
): N, DEV
- Enable IBPB on kernel entry (
CONFIG_CPU_IBPB_ENTRY
): Y
- Enable IBRS on kernel entry (
CONFIG_CPU_IBRS_ENTRY
): Y
- Mitigate speculative RAS overflow (
CONFIG_CPU_SRSO
): Y, on AMD processors
- Mitigate Straight-Line-Speculation (
CONFIG_SLS
): N
- Force GDS Mitigation (
CONFIG_GDS_FORCE_MITIGATION
): N
Power management and ACPI options
- Suspend to RAM and standby (
CONFIG_SUSPEND
): Y, N for servers
- Skip kernel's sys_sync() on suspend to RAM/standby (
CONFIG_SUSPEND_SKIP_SYNC
): N
- Hibernation (aka 'suspend to disk') (
CONFIG_HIBERNATION
): Y, if desired. N for servers
- Opportunistic sleep (
CONFIG_PM_SLEEP
): N, EMB
- Userspace opportunistic sleep (
CONFIG_PM_USERSPACE_AUTOSLEEP
): N, EMB
- User space wakeup sources interface (
CONFIG_PM_WAKELOCKS
): N, EMB
- Device power management core functionality (
CONFIG_PM
): Y, STD
- Power Management Debug Support (
CONFIG_PM_DEBUG
): N, DEV
- Enable workqueue power-efficient mode by default (
CONFIG_WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT_DEFAULT
): N
- Energy Model for devices with DVFS (
CONFIG_ENERGY_MODEL
): N
-
ACPI Support (
CONFIG_ACPI
): Y, STD
- AML debugger interface (
CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUGGER
): N DEV
- ACPI Serial Port Console Redirection Support (
CONFIG_ACPI_SPCR_TABLE
): N, DEV
- ACPI Firmware Performance Data Table (FPDT) support (
CONFIG_ACPI_FPDT
): Y, STD
- Allow support ACPI revision to be overridden (
CONFIG_ACPI_REV_OVERRIDE_POSSIBLE
): N
- EC read/write access through /sys/kernel/debug/ec (
CONFIG_ACPI_EC_DEBUGFS
): N, DEV
- AC Adapater (
CONFIG_ACPI_AC
): Y, if present
- Battery (
CONFIG_ACPI_BATTERY
): Y, on laptops
- Button (
CONFIG_ACPI_BUTTON
): Y
- Video (
CONFIG_ACPI_VIDEO
): Y
- Fan (
CONFIG_ACPI_FAN
): Y
- ACPI Time and Alarm (TAD) Device Support (
CONFIG_ACPI_TAD
): Y
- Dock (
CONFIG_ACPI_DOCK
): Y, if using docking station
- Processor (
CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR
): Y
- Processor Aggregator (
CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR_AGGREGATOR
): Y
- Thermal Zone (
CONFIG_ACPI_THERMAL
): Y
- Custom DSDT Table file to include (
CONFIG_ACPI_CUSTOM_DSDT_FILE
): empty
- Debug Statements (
CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUG
): N, DEV
- PCI slot detection driver (
CONFIG_ACPI_PCI_SLOT
): N, DEV
- Container and Module Devices (
CONFIG_ACPI_CONTAINER
): Y
- Smart Battery System (
CONFIG_ACPI_SBS
): Y, on laptops
- Hardware Error Device (
CONFIG_ACPI_HED
): Y
- Boottime Graphics Resource Table support (
CONFIG_ACPI_BGRT
): N
- Hardware-reduced ACPI support only (
CONFIG_ACPI_REDUCED_HARDWWARE_ONLY
): N
- ACPI Platform Error Interface (APEI) (
CONFIG_ACPI_APEI
): Y
- APEI Generic Hardware Error Source (
CONFIG_ACPI_APEI_GHES
): Y
- APEI Error Record Serialization Table (ERST) Debug Support (
CONFIG_ACPI_APEI_ERST_DEBUG
): N, DEV
- Intel DPTF (Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework) (
CONFIG_ACPI_DPTF
): Y, on Intel processors
- ACPI configfs support (
CONFIG_ACPI_CONFIGFS
): N
- ACPI Platform Firmware Runtime Update and Telemetry (
CONFIG_ACPI_PFRUT
): N
- ACPI PCC Address Space (
CONFIG_ACPI_PCC
): Y, STD, for UEFI
- ACPI FFH Address Space (
CONFIG_ACPI_FFH
): N
- PMIC (Power Management Integrated Circuit) operation region support (
CONFIG_PMIC_OPREGION
): N
- Platform Runtime Mechanism Support (
CONFIG_ACPI_PRMT
): Y
- Power Management Timer Support (
CONFIG_X86_PM_TIMER
): Y, STD
-
CPU Frequency scaling
- CPU frequency transition statistics (
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_STAT
): N, DEV
- Default CPUFreq governor: performance
- 'performance' governor (
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_PERFORMANCE
): Y
- 'powersave' governor (
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_POWERSAVE
): N, not strictly necessary
- 'userspace' governor for userspace frequency scaling (
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_USERSPACE
): N, not strictly necessary
- 'ondemand' cpufreq policy governor (
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_ONDEMAND
): N
- 'conservative' cpufreq governor (
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_CONSERVATIVE
): N
- 'schedutil' cpufreq policy governor (
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_SCHEDUTIL
): Y
- Intel P state control (
CONFIG_X86_INTEL_PSTATE
): Y, on Intel processors
- Processor Clocking Control interface driver (
CONFIG_X86_PCC_CPUFREQ
): N, OLD
- AMD Processor P-State driver (
CONFIG_X86_AMD_PSTATE
): Y, on AMD processors
- selftest for AMD Processor P-State driver (
CONFIG_X86_AMD_PSTATE_UT
): N, DEV
- ACPI Processor P-States driver (
CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ
): Y, STD
- Intel Enhanced SpeedStep (
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO
): N, OLD
- Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation (
CONFIG_X86_P4_CLOCKMOD
): N, OLD
-
CPU Idle
- CPU idle PM support (
CONFIG_CPU_IDLE
): Y, STD
- Ladder governor (for periodic timer tick) (
CPU_IDLE_GOV_LADDER
): N
- Menu governor (for tickless system) (
CPU_IDLE_GOV_MENU
): Y
- Timer events oriented governor (
CONFIG_CPU_IDLE_GOV_TEO
): N
- Cpuidle Driver for Intel Processors (
CONFIG_INTEL_IDLE
): Y, on Intel processors
Bus options (PCI etc.)
Support mmconfig PCI space access (PCI_MMCONFIG
): Y, STD
Read CNB20LE Host Bridge Windows (CONFIG_PCI_CNB20LE_QUIRK
): N
ISA bus support on modern systems (CONFIG_ISA_BUS
): N
ISA-style DMA support (CONFIG_ISA_DMA_API
): N
Binary Emulations
IA32 Emulation (CONFIG_IA32_EMULATION
): N, unless using 32-bit applications
General architecture-dependent options
Optimize very unlikely/likely branche (CONFIG_JUMP_LABEL
): Y
Static key selftest (CONFIG_STATIC_KEYS_SELFTEST
): N, DEV
Static call selftest (CONFIG_STATIC_CALL_SELFTEST
): N, DEV
Enable seccomp to safely execute untrusted bytecode (CONFIG_SECCOMP
): Y, STD
Show seccomp filter cache status in /proc/pid/seccomp_cache (CONFIG_SECCOMP_CACHE_DEBUG
): N, DEV
Stack Protector buffer overflow detection (CONFIG_STACKPROTECTOR
): Y, SEC
Strong Stack Protector (CONFIG_STACKPROTECTOR_STRONG
): Y, SEC
Link Time Optimization (LTO): None
Number of bits to use for ASLR of mmap base address (CONFIG_ARCH_MMAP_RND_BITS
): 28
Provide system calls for 32-bit time_t (CONFIG_COMPAT_32BIT_TIME
): Y, STD
Use a virtually-mapped stack (CONFIG_VMAP_STACK
): Y, SEC
Support for randomizing kernel stack offset on syscall entry (CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_KSTACK_OFFSET
): Y, SEC
Default state of kernel stack offset randomization (CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_KSTACK_OFFSET_DEFAULT
): Y, SEC
Enable the block layer
Legacy autoloading support (CONFIG_BLOCK_LEGACY_AUTOLOAD
): N, OLD
Block layer SG support v4 helper lib (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_BSGLIB
): N, auto enabled if needed
Block layer data integrity support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INTEGRITY
): N
Allow writing to mounted block devices (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_WRITE_MOUNTED
): Y, STD
Zoned block device support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ZONED
): N
Block layer bio throttling support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_THROTTLING
): N, VIRT
Enable support for block device writeback throttling (CONFIG_BLK_WBT
): Y
Enable writeback throttling by default (CONFIG_BLK_WBT_MQ
): N
Enable support for latency based cgroup IO protection (CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP_IOLATENCY
): N, VIRT
Enable support for cost model based cgroup IO controller (CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP_IOCOST
): N, VIRT
Cgroup I/O controller for assigning an I/O priority class (CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP_IOPRIO
): N, VIRT
Logic for interfacing with Opal enabled SEDs (CONFIG_BLK_SED_OPAL
): N
Enable inline encryption support in block layer (CONFIG_BLK_INLINE_ENCRYPTION
): N
Partition Types
- Advanced partition selection (
CONFIG_PARTITION_ADVANCED
): Y
- PC BIOS (MSDOS partition tables) support (
CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION
): Y
- EFI GUID Partition support (
CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION
): Y
- Select others as needed...
IO Schedulers
- MQ deadline I/O scheduler (
CONFIG_MQ_IOSCHED_DEADLINE
): N, if using cgroups
- Kyber I/O scheduler (
CONFIG_MQ_IOSCHED_KYBER
): N
- BFQ I/O scheduler (
CONFIG_IOSCHED_BFQ
): Y
- BFQ hierarchical scheduling support (
CONFIG_BFQ_GROUP_IOSCHED
): Y, if using cgroups
- BFQ IO controller debugging (
CONFIG_BFQ_CGROUP_DEBUG
): N, DEV
Executable file formats
Kernel support for ELF binaries (CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF
): Y, STD
Write ELF core dumps with partial segments (CONFIG_CORE_DUMP_DEFAULT_ELF_HEADERS
): Y
Kernel support for scripts starting with #! (CONFIG_BINFMT_SCRIPT
): Y, STD
Kernel support for MISC binaries (CONFIG_BINFMT_MISC
): N, SEC
Enable core dump support (CONFIG_COREDUMP
): Y
Memory Management options
Support for paging of anonymous memory (swap) (CONFIG_SWAP
): Y, STD
Slab allocator options
- Configure for minimal memory footprint (
CONFIG_SLUB_TINY
): N, EMB
- Allow slab caches to be merged (
CONFIG_SLAB_MERGE_DEFAULT
): Y
- Randomize slab freelist (
CONFIG_SLAB_FREELIST_RANDOM
): Y, SEC
- Harden slab freelist metadata (
CONFIG_SLAB_FREELIST_HARDENED
): Y, SEC
- Enable performance statistics (
CONFIG_SLUB_STATS
): N, DEV
- Enable per cpu partial caches (
CONFIG_SLUB_CPU_PARTIAL
): Y, on multicore systems...
- Randomize slab caches for normal kmalloc (
CONFIG_RANDOM_KMALLOC_CACHES
): N, SEC
Page allocator randomization (CONFIG_SHUFFLE_PAGE_ALLOCATOR
): Y, SEC
Disable heap randomization (CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK
): N, OLD
Sparse Memory virtual memmap (CONFIG_SPARSE_VMEMMAP
): Y, STD
Memory hotplug (MEMORY_HOTPLUG
): N, VIRT
Allow for memory compaction (CONFIG_COMPACTION
): Y, STD
Free page reporting (CONFIG_PAGE_REPORTING
): N, VIRT
Page migration (CONFIG_MIGRATION
): Y, auto enabled if needed
Maximum scale factor of PCP (Per-CPU pageset) batch allocate/free (CONFIG_PCP_BATCH_SCALE_MAX
): 5
Enable KSM for page merging (CONFIG_KSM
): N, VIRT
Low address space to protect from user allocation (CONFIG_DEFAULT_MMAP_ADDR
): 65536
Enable recovery from hardware memory errors (CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE
): N, unless you have ECC memory
Transparent Hugepage Support (CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE
): N, unless you have large amounts of memory
Contiguous Memory Allocator (CONFIG_CMA
): N
Defer initialisation of struct pages to kthreads (CONFIG_DEFERRED_PAGE_INIT
): N
Enable idle page tracking (CONFIG_IDLE_PAGE_TRACKING
): N
Support DMA zone (ZONE_DMA
): Y
Support DMA32 zone (ZONE_DMA32
): Y
Enable VM event counters /proc/vmstat (CONFIG_VM_EVENT_COUNTERS
): Y
Collect percpu memory statistics (CONFIG_PERCPU_STATS
): N, DEV
Enable a module to run time tests on dma_pool (CONFIG_DMAPOOL_TEST
): N, DEV
Enable memfd_create() system call (MEMFD_CREATE
): Y
Enable memfd_secreat() system call (CONFIG_SECRETMEM
): Y
Anonymous VMA name support (CONFIG_ANON_VMA_NAME
): N, SEC
Enable userfaultfd() system call (CONFIG_USERFAULTFD
): N, VIRT
Multi-Gen LRU (CONFIG_LRU_GEN
): N
Data Access Monitoring
- DAMON: Data Access Monitoring Framework (
CONFIG_DAMON
): N
Network support
Networking options
Amateur Radio support (CONIG_HAMRADIO
): N
CAN bus subsystem support (CONFIG_CAN
): N, used in vehicles
Bluetooth subsystem support (CONFIG_BT
): Y, if desired
- Bluetooth Classic (BR/EDR) features (
CONFIG_BT_BREDR
): Y
- RFCOMM protocol support (
CONFIG_BT_RFCOMM
): Y
- RFCOMM TTY support (
CONFIG_BT_RFCOMM_TTY
): N
- BNEP protocol support (
CONFIG_BT_BNEP
): N
- HIDP protocol support (
CONFIG_BT_HIDP
): Y, for input devices
- Bluetooth High Speed (HS) features (
CONFIG_BT_HS
): Y
- Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) features (
CONFIG_BT_LE
): Y
- Bluetooth L2CAP Enhanced Credit Flow Control (
CONFIG_BT_LE_L2CAP_ECRED
): Y
- Enable LED triggers (
CONFIG_BT_LEDS
): N
- Enable Microsoft extensions (
CONFIG_BT_MSFTEXT
): N
- Enable Android Open Source Project extensions (
CONFIG_BT_AOSPEXT
): N
- Bluetooth self testing support (
CONFIG_BT_SELFTEST
): N, DEV
- Enable runtime option for debugging statements (
CONFIG_BT_FEATURE_DEBUG
): N, DEV
- Bluetooth device drivers
- HCI USB driver (
CONFIG_BT_HCIBTUSB
): Y, most bt cards are attached via usb
- Enable USB poll_sync for Bluetooth USB devices by default (
CONFIG_BT_HCIBTUSB_POLL_SYNC
): Y, STD
- Enable others based on hardware...
RxRPC session sockets (CONFIG_AF_RXRPC
): N
KCM sockets (CONFIG_AF_KCM
): N
MCTP core protocol support (CONFIG_MCTP
): N
Wireless (WIRELESS
): Y, if needed
- cfg80211 - wireless configuration API (
CONFIG_CFG80211
): Y, STD
- nl80211 testmode command (
CONFIG_NL80211_TESTMODE
): N, DEV
- enable developer warnings (
CONFIG_CFG80211_DEVELOPER_WARNINGS
): N, DEV
- cfg80211 certification onus (
CONFIG_CFG80211_CERTIFICATION_ONUS
): N
- enable powersave by default (
CONFIG_CFG80211_DEFAULT_PS
): Y
- support CRDA (
CONFIG_CFG80211_CRDA_SUPPORT
): Y
- cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility (
CONFIG_CFG80211_WEXT
): N
- Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211) (
CONFIG_MAC80211
): Y, STD
- Minstrel (
CONFIG_MAC80211_RC_MINSTREL
): Y
- Default rate control algorithm: Minstrel
- Enable mac80211 mesh networking support (
CONFIG_MAC80211_MESH
): N, OLD
- Enable LED triggers (
CONFIG_MAC80211_LEDS
): N
- Trace all mac80211 debug messages (
CONFIG_MAC80211_MESSAGE_TRACING
): N, DEV
- Select mac80211 debugging features (
CONFIG_MAC80211_DEBUG_MENU
): N, DEV
RF switch subsystem support (CONFIG_RFKILL
): N, may be needed for some network/bt cards
Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support (9P2000) (CONFIG_NET_9P
): N, VIRT
CAIF support (CONFIG_CAIF
): N
Ceph core library (CONFIG_CEPH_LIB
): N
NFC subsystem support (CONFIG_NFC
): N, EMB
Packet-sampling netlink channel (CONFIG_PSAMPLE
): N
Inter-FE based on IETF ForCES InterFE LFB (CONFIG_NET_IFE
): N
Network light weight tunnels (CONFIG_LWTUNNEL
): N
Generic failover module (CONFIG_FAILOVER
): N, VIRT
Netlink interface for ethtool (CONFIG_ETHTOOL_NETLINK
): N
This is a WIP...