defconfigs size reduction?

defconfigs size reduction?

[devzero]

hi there, 

i found that there are a lot of deconfigs bundled with every kernel-release. (about 335 on my suse box)

summed up, that`s  6,3M and 311 KLOC (Kilo Lines of Configuration :) 

i think, that`s quite a lot.

if i strip the comments ( real comments and "# CONFIGOPT is not set") and the blank lines from that, the size reduces to 1.9M and 86 KLOC.

i have tested such stripping with arch/x86/configs/i386_defconfig and if i do a "make defconfig" afterwards, the .config in /usr/src/linux
has those comments and the blank lines again.

so it appears, that these defconfigs have lot`s of redundant information which could probably be wiped with a bigger cleanup patch.
i`m not sure, if this is a good approach, because others may use the configs in a different way or it may work differently for other arches. 

maybe you experts can give a comment here ?
would such cleanup for shrinking kernelsize be reasonable ?

regards
roland



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Re: defconfigs size reduction?

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 01:29:00PM +0100, devzero@web.de wrote:
> hi there, 
> 
> i found that there are a lot of deconfigs bundled with every kernel-release. (about 335 on my suse box)
> 
> summed up, that`s  6,3M and 311 KLOC (Kilo Lines of Configuration :) 
> 
> i think, that`s quite a lot.
> 
> if i strip the comments ( real comments and "# CONFIGOPT is not set") and the blank lines from that, the size reduces to 1.9M and 86 KLOC.
> 

The primary issue with defconfigs are that they get
outdated rather quickly. They are often several kernel releases
behind.
This is a much more relvant issue to address than a few wasted MB of
cheap disk space.
So anything that just make it a tad more difficult to update
a defconfig will not be accepted if the only aim is to save
disk space.

	Sam