Size of kernel halts startup

Size of kernel halts startup

[cksim]

Hi,

Yesterday, I have encountered an issue when the kernel size is more than 1.3MB.

Info on problem encountered as follows:
1) I am using Atmel AT91SAM9261 part. Circuit similar to that of AT91SAM9261EK
evaluation board.

2) I am booting the kernel through NFS. Bootloader
used is UBoot 1.1.5. Kernel used is 2.6.23.1

3) For the past weeks, the kernel size was about 1.3MB and kernel bootup over NFS was fine.

4) Yesterday, I have done a menuconfig and turned on some drivers (USB HID and I2C).  This resulted in a kernel size of about 1.4MB.

5) Booting up this 1.4MB kernel over NFS causes a register dump to appear and the system is halted.

Is this issue related to the size of the kernel or it is due to some conflict in memory ?

If it is related to size of kernel, how can the size be increased so as to resolve this issue ?

Appreciate any help and advises.

Thanks in advance.

Sim CK

Re: Size of kernel halts startup

[Ben Dooks]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 11:28:29AM +0800, cksim wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Yesterday, I have encountered an issue when the kernel size is more than 1.3MB.
> 
> Info on problem encountered as follows:
> 1) I am using Atmel AT91SAM9261 part. Circuit similar to that of AT91SAM9261EK
> evaluation board.
> 
> 2) I am booting the kernel through NFS. Bootloader
> used is UBoot 1.1.5. Kernel used is 2.6.23.1
> 
> 3) For the past weeks, the kernel size was about 1.3MB and kernel bootup over NFS was fine.
> 
> 4) Yesterday, I have done a menuconfig and turned on some drivers (USB HID and I2C).  This resulted in a kernel size of about 1.4MB.
> 
> 5) Booting up this 1.4MB kernel over NFS causes a register dump to appear and the system is halted.
> 
> Is this issue related to the size of the kernel or it is due to some conflict in memory ?
> 
> If it is related to size of kernel, how can the size be increased so as to resolve this issue ?
> 
> Appreciate any help and advises.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Sim CK

You're best of subscribing to linux-arm-kernel list and asking there
as you'll be more likely to find people who are actually using these
sorts of systems.

-- 
Ben (ben@fluff.org, http://www.fluff.org/)

  'a smiley only costs 4 bytes'

Re: Size of kernel halts startup

[devzero]

Hi!

>4) Yesterday, I have done a menuconfig and turned on some drivers (USB HID and I2C).  \
>This resulted in a kernel size of about 1.4MB.

if you saved your old .config you could add those features one after the other to see if it`s size related....

>5) Booting up this 1.4MB kernel over NFS causes a register dump to appear and the \
>system is halted.
>Is this issue related to the size of the kernel or it is due to some conflict in \
>memory ?

hard to tell without any further information on this.

>If it is related to size of kernel, how can the size be increased so as to resolve \
>this issue ?

i assume you meant decrease!?

get a in-depth knowlegde about all the different config options and decide if you need it or not.

maybe after compile, some
find . -name "*.o" |while read file;do ls -s $file;done |sort -n
will help identifying parts of the kernel which take up most of the space

maybe CONFIG_EMBEDDED=y helps, too.

furthermore, there are projects like http://www.selenic.com/linux-tiny/ to  make kernel small for embedded systems.

a nice (but more generic) article about downsizing linux for embedded system is at http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9686

i think these mailing lists provide better help since it`s more likely to meet people there who develop for ARCH=arm

http://marc.info/?l=linux-arm&r=1&w=2
http://marc.info/?l=linux-arm-kernel&r=1&w=2

regards
roland


>Appreciate any help and advises.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Sim CK

>List:       linux-kernel
>Subject:    Size of kernel halts startup
>From:       cksim <cksim () singnet ! com ! sg>
>Date:       2008-01-07 3:28:29
>Message-ID: 1199676509.47819c5deaf60 () discus ! singnet ! com ! sg
>[Download message RAW]
>
>Hi,
>
>Yesterday, I have encountered an issue when the kernel size is more than 1.3MB.
>
>Info on problem encountered as follows:
>1) I am using Atmel AT91SAM9261 part. Circuit similar to that of AT91SAM9261EK
>evaluation board.
>
>2) I am booting the kernel through NFS. Bootloader
>used is UBoot 1.1.5. Kernel used is 2.6.23.1
>
>3) For the past weeks, the kernel size was about 1.3MB and kernel bootup over NFS was \
>fine.
>
>4) Yesterday, I have done a menuconfig and turned on some drivers (USB HID and I2C).  \
>This resulted in a kernel size of about 1.4MB.
>
>5) Booting up this 1.4MB kernel over NFS causes a register dump to appear and the \
>system is halted.
>
>Is this issue related to the size of the kernel or it is due to some conflict in \
>memory ?
>
>If it is related to size of kernel, how can the size be increased so as to resolve \
>this issue ?
>
>Appreciate any help and advises.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Sim CK
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