User Feedback :: Kernel size

I can't understand one thing about the kernel: I have looked on the kernel.org site and the 2.4 kernel has more than 90MB descompressed... I cannot understand how DSL kernel works under 50MB... DSL get bigger after boot? or is the kernel modified?

Maybe my question is obvious , but i'm new in linux!

I'm only supposetizing here, but my guess is that the kernel.org kernel includes a huge pile of modules and other optionals. As it's a source release of the most important part of the OS, it would also contain all of the documentation they can possibly stuff into it.

The actual compiled kernel is only a tiny fraction of the size of the source, even on distros that are considered bloated. In any case, most of the size of the typical distro is in the modules and in programs not directly related to the kernel.

original here.