From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list linux-mips); Mon, 02 Feb 2004 18:53:52 +0000 (GMT) Received: from p508B7363.dip.t-dialin.net ([IPv6:::ffff:80.139.115.99]:44356 "EHLO mail.linux-mips.net") by linux-mips.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 2 Feb 2004 18:53:52 +0000 Received: from fluff.linux-mips.net (fluff.linux-mips.net [127.0.0.1]) by mail.linux-mips.net (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i12IrUex024033; Mon, 2 Feb 2004 19:53:30 +0100 Received: (from ralf@localhost) by fluff.linux-mips.net (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id i12IrTDl024032; Mon, 2 Feb 2004 19:53:29 +0100 Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 19:53:29 +0100 From: Ralf Baechle To: "Smith, Todd" Cc: "'linux-mips@linux-mips.org '" Subject: Re: MIPS Kernel size Message-ID: <20040202185329.GA23667@linux-mips.org> References: <490E0430C3C72046ACF7F18B7CD76A2A56955D@KES.camcare.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <490E0430C3C72046ACF7F18B7CD76A2A56955D@KES.camcare.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Return-Path: X-Envelope-To: <"|/home/ecartis/ecartis -s linux-mips"> (uid 0) X-Orcpt: rfc822;linux-mips@linux-mips.org Original-Recipient: rfc822;linux-mips@linux-mips.org X-archive-position: 4233 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: linux-mips-bounce@linux-mips.org Errors-to: linux-mips-bounce@linux-mips.org X-original-sender: ralf@linux-mips.org Precedence: bulk X-list: linux-mips On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 11:12:10AM -0500, Smith, Todd wrote: > I am still interested in some older PDA usage that has limited resources. I > certainly don't want to hold up or stop current kernel dev but is there a > problem with keeping small kernel and/or userspace limits? Different tradeoffs. In general the kernel is optimized for performance, even at the cost of significant amounts of memory. As the most infamous example the kernel is using lots of fairly complex hash and radix trees. But why would a system that has just a default route need the same kind of data structures and algorithms it takes to route packets on backbone router in the default free zone? Why would you drive a moon rocket to for shopping? Linux has generally developped in the direction of larger machines and higher scalability and sometimes that's causing fairly bad itching. The -tiny tree is an attempt to correct this. It's a development tree but with the goal of merging changes back into the standard kernel and I hope much of it will be merged back into 2.6 - 2.8 is too far in the future to wait for ... Ralf