-The manual configurators "make config" and "make menuconfig" modify the
-existing configuration. Quick ways to get starting configurations include
-"make allyesconfig" (enables almost all options), "make allnoconfig" (disables
-all options), "make allbaseconfig" (enables all applets but disables all
-optional features), and "make defconfig" (reset to defaults).
+The manual configurator "make menuconfig" modifies the existing configuration.
+(For systems without ncurses, try "make config" instead.) The two most
+interesting starting configurations are "make allnoconfig" (to start with
+everything disabled and add just what you need), and "make defconfig" (to
+start with everything enabled and remove what you don't need). If menuconfig
+is run without an existing configuration, make defconfig will run first to
+create a known starting point.
+
+Other starting configurations (mostly used for testing purposes) include
+"make allbareconfig" (enables all applets but disables all optional features),
+"make allyesconfig" (enables absolutely everything including debug features),
+and "make randconfig" (produce a random configuration). The configs/ directory
+contains a number of additional configuration files ending in _defconfig which
+are useful in specific cases. "make help" will list them.