Re: New (now current development process)

Roland Dreier
2005-11-02T05:56:48Z

Linus> I really don't see the point of shaving less than a kB with
Linus> ugly calling convention magic, when switching to -Os can
Linus> save us much more, and when the networking code is several
Linus> hundred kB.

Fair enough, although to be fair the savings are still there even with
-Os enabled. With CONFIG_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE=y:

text data bss dec hex filename
682564 197172 116384 996120 f3318 vmlinux-before
681824 197244 116384 995452 f307c vmlinux-after

And with a realistic config rather than allnoconfig, you could easily
save as much as 3 or even 4 KB of text!

BTW, allnoconfig has CONFIG_NET=n, so we have to find someone else to
blame here.

Linus> If we start doing size optimizations, we need to think big.

No pun intended I'm sure...

Anyway, it would be great to find ways to make big improvements. But
I think the most realistic way to shrink the kernel is the same way it
grows in the first place -- one small piece at a time.

- R.