Is there any particular reason the linear array option isn't being compiled at least as a kernel module by default?  I believe its primary use case is for backups, where in a two disk example, one would want as much data preserved on at least one disk in the event another disk fails, not have half the data as in raid0, etc, or half the capacity as in raid1.  (these are disk sets where they're mounted, written to, unmounted and removed offsite for safe keeping and recovery purposes)

Basically, having to compile the linear module on Excalibur requires downloading the kernel, making sure I have the write packages to build a kernel, and doing the kernel build routine.  This works, but its not what I want to have to do in the future to build a box to get the backups restored, where i'm presuming if that situation ever does arise, I wont be in much of a mood to watch a kernel compile.  Naively said, I think this could be solved by marking the linear code as a module in the default config and including it as a compiled module that's installed with the other modules.

thanks for reading this far and considering the plight of a linear array user.