[oclug] Learning the configuration of a compiled kernel: COL Wks 3.1 beta

[Bruce Miller]

I can find no .config file to show the configuration of the "out-of-the- 
box" (off-the-CD??) kernel in my Caldera OpenLinux Workstation 
3.1 open beta. In /boot, there are two "What's in" files, but they 
both refer to 2.2.14 kernels. 

I am still sufficiently "newbie" that I could learn a lot from studying 
the configuration of an existing kernel. I would like to take the 
existing kernel and modify it, for example, to add the built-in NTFS 
R/O support for the Windows 2000 partition. I would like to check 
other things for my own learning, e.g. why an MS Intellimouse is a 
PS/2 mouse, not a bus mouse, how the Promise ATA100 card was 
implemented, how the CD-RW was recognized, why the CD-ROM 
is not properly recognized, etc, etc. Learning the configuration of 
the existing kernel would also allow me to upgrade to kernel 2.4.3 
without introducing new errors into the configuration (I have been 
learning that the hard way<grin>.) 

Related question: I have picked up a couple of morsels of 
configuration by watching screen messages flash past as the 
kernel loads. Is there a way to trap that information, or, same thing 
really, to get a detailed output of the exact hardware configuration 
which this installation has recognized?