[LinuxBIOS] [Fastboot] Re: [Kboot-general] Re: small 64bit initrd

[Eric W. Biederman]

Steve Gehlbach <steve at nexpath.com> writes:

> Thanks for the info.  I will give it a try.  I actually had linux-tiny in my
> list of links to get to and read, and hadn't got there yet.  A few months ago I
> just took a straight forward approach of clicking the same things I had in 2.4
> for 2.6, and it built out at about 1300K.  It was so far from 900K that I didn't
> look any further.  Things that I need that add a lot are for example usb mass
> storage and also ext3 but I am not sure how much that adds.
>
> I might also mention that I have always left out module support, and linked in
> 5-10 most popular network drivers.  There seems to be no savings in space since
> you would need all the modules on the disk anyway.  Never had any problems in
> the drivers finding their card or conflicting.  The idea is that it can be used
> on a wide variety of hardware without configuration.  Maybe others have a better
> approach I am open for ideas.

The two interesting pieces for your style of configuration are:
1) The -Os work that has been going on recently, I think I have
   heard 10% reduction for that.
2) Careful selection of which compiler you are using as that makes
   a noticeable difference.
3) Look under CONFIG_EMBEDDED and possibly elsewhere for options
   you don't need and can turn off.  CONFIG_EMBEDDED also has some
   smaller alternatives for some of the common features.

You might also grab ext2 instead of ext3.  When clean either will
work.

Eric