Plus you got people like me who feel that a package manager should not manage the kernel-level stuff, such as the kernel and drivers and such. That, again, is a matter of taste.
]]>Is there any benefits to creating your own custom kernel other than adding drivers not yet supported by the kernel???
Actually, that's not usually the reason people do it - more the reverse. Most distro-supplied kernels, including Arch's, include drivers for almost everything, so that they will run on almost anything. If you build your own, you can leave out all but the drivers you need, ending up with a slimmer kernel. You can add unsupported drivers too, of course, but you don't always need to rebuild your kernel to do this. Take the madwifi driver, for example - you compile that against your running kernel, without touching the kernel itself.
Other unsupported drivers will come as a patch or patchset to be applied to the kernel source before compilation - examples here would be the likes of reiser4 support or Suspend2. You can also add performance-enhancing patchsets, like ck, or a "compilation" patchset, like our very own archck.
A good place to start would be here in our wiki - that will also introduce you to ABS, and the Arch way of doing these kind of things. For a more in-depth read, Google will throw up plenty of options - like this, for instance.
Take your time, and have fun.
]]>Is there any benefits to creating your own custom kernel other than adding drivers not yet supported by the kernel???
To get me started & the know-how ... I'd like some tips on what I need to know/do to compile my own custom Kernel (as a get started guide). I've added a list of my current system h/w if that helps.
A few pointers & suggestions would be nice (links, books...etc) ... thanks.
Intel P4 2.8GHz
2 HDD SATA (no raid)
External USB HDD
Onboard mobo NIC (Intel Pro 1000)
SoundBlaster X-Fi
NVIDIA 6800 GT
2 LCD's
2GB RAM (PC 4000)
Printer