Re: [PATCH] Adding CONFIG_MESSAGES for deeply embedded systems

From: Graham Stoney (greyham@research.canon.com.au)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2000 - 02:57:36 EST


Hi Lars,

lars brinkhoff writes:
> Thank you.

You're welcome. I'm keen to have eyes from other architectures look at this
stuff.

> This might be very useful for me, because I'm trying to convice
> my company to use Linux for our embedded application. Do you
> have any estimate on how much space the patch saves?

The savings become significant when you start turning config options off.

For example, with the -ffunction-sections and CONFIG_MESSAGES patches I just
posted, my stripped powerpc vmlinux dropped by 170K to 780K. This should
improve further when I get the gcc people to fix a bug preventing some of the
unused strings from being optimised away.

If your competition's kernel is ~600K, I doubt they can claim a significant
edge based on size alone. The Linux kernel is already pretty lean; my patches
just enable a bit more optimisation for embedded stuff.

I guess it's a case of incrementally chipping away. Individually the savings
are not enormous, but they add up when all applied together.

Regards,
Graham

-- 
Graham Stoney
Principal Hardware/Software Engineer
Canon Information Systems Research Australia
Ph: +61 2 9805 2909  Fax: +61 2 9805 2929

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