On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 3:59 AM, KatolaZ <katolaz@???> wrote:

> But what's the point of having modules "at the end of [the kernel]
> image"? You can just compile-in them.
>


Simple, It's to be able to turn a packaged, distribution supplied kernel
into one that will successfully boot on obscure hardware - to be able to
inject the modules needed for drive controllers, filesystems, and other
boot-time dependencies into the image. Which would be not only faster, but
also less error prone, and easier to do than a full kernel compile and all
the obscure, potentially breaking choices that go with it.

There's also the issue of overly risk-averse enterprise environments. Even
if they trust their sysadmins, they may not trust the compiler and the
hardware it runs on well enough to risk deployment into production. A
distribution-supplied kernel typically means that same binary is already
running on at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions of other
systems, meaning someone else is finding problems for you. There's no way
they're going to get that level of testing from a kernel built in house.