> I'm fine with generic kernel builds and that's what I usually use, but I don't think tweaking your kernel is as painful or manual today as the greybeards here remember.

Back then, we went into "make menuconfig", and meticulously reviewed every single configuration option, carefully tuning them to our bespoke hardware; it only took a few hours. Try doing that nowadays; there's simply way too many configuration options (each new device driver adds a couple, and even the kernel core has grown to hundreds of them). So yeah, I'd say fully tweaking your kernel is a more painful process today than in the past.

(The same for packages; back then, we could open "dselect" and page through all the available packages in a single evening; nowadays, there's too many of them.)

When I was in high school, I used to use `make menuconfig` that way. I guess I hadn't thought about extending that comprehensive review process to contemporary kernels. I imagine that most people compiling their own kernels today are doing it for the sake of specific, targeted tweaks that they are aware they want in advance.