CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL option added

CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL option added

[Jody Bruchon]

I've added a new kernel configuration option that reduces the size of 
the kernel without harmfully changing kernel functionality. 
CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL will turn off some unnecessary informational driver 
initialization messages and the code that is used to generate them. This 
will be expanded as I find more opportunities in the code to apply it. 
For now, if you use the current git snapshot with and without this 
option selected, the results will be something like this:

text    data    bss     dec
55840   6984    50884   113708  CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL=n
55152   6720    50884   112756  CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL=y
  -688   -264        0     -952  Change

I also updated the kernel defconfig to match currently available options 
and cleaned out some junk kernel config options that were not referenced 
anywhere in the actual code.

-Jody

Re: CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL option added

[MFLD]

Hello Jody,

Reducing the kernel size by making it less verbous looks fine, but I 
think the option is misnamed and that could lead to confusion. A newbie 
like me would understand that option as "reduce the kernel features to 
gain space", not the amount of traces. So I would rename it something 
like "VERBOSE_LESS" ?

Also, could it be possible to make such changes like this latest one in 
another development branch, so that we could have a stable master 
branch, as the official Linux, so that we could review, test, validate 
and mature the changes on our different platforms before merging them ?

Regards,

Marc-F. Lucca-Daniau


Le 23/03/2015 03:21, Jody Bruchon a écrit :
> I've added a new kernel configuration option that reduces the size of 
> the kernel without harmfully changing kernel functionality. 
> CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL will turn off some unnecessary informational 
> driver initialization messages and the code that is used to generate 
> them. This will be expanded as I find more opportunities in the code 
> to apply it. For now, if you use the current git snapshot with and 
> without this option selected, the results will be something like this:
>
> text    data    bss     dec
> 55840   6984    50884   113708  CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL=n
> 55152   6720    50884   112756  CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL=y
>  -688   -264        0     -952  Change
>
> I also updated the kernel defconfig to match currently available 
> options and cleaned out some junk kernel config options that were not 
> referenced anywhere in the actual code.

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-8086" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL option added

[Jody Bruchon]

On 3/23/2015 4:16 AM, MFLD wrote:
> Reducing the kernel size by making it less verbous looks fine, but I
> think the option is misnamed and that could lead to confusion. A newbie
> like me would understand that option as "reduce the kernel features to
> gain space", not the amount of traces. So I would rename it something
> like "VERBOSE_LESS" ?

The plan is to have the option reduce size in other code as needed, not
just to reduce the number of messages in the kernel.

> Also, could it be possible to make such changes like this latest one in
> another development branch, so that we could have a stable master
> branch, as the official Linux, so that we could review, test, validate
> and mature the changes on our different platforms before merging them ?

ELKS isn't stable enough to justify adding branches for the sake of
having a "stable master" branch. It was only with the release of 0.2.0
that it could be considered remotely close to "stable." Even since then,
I've fixed numerous problems with the code. I'd prefer not to call
anything "stable" until ELKS is at a point that version 1.0 is
justifiable. There are only two people actively working on the ELKS code
base right now, so that's going to take some time.

-Jody