From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1761963AbXGRUZY (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:25:24 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752918AbXGRUZG (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:25:06 -0400 Received: from terminus.zytor.com ([198.137.202.10]:52424 "EHLO terminus.zytor.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751599AbXGRUZE (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:25:04 -0400 Message-ID: <469E7709.9070801@zytor.com> Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:24:41 -0700 From: "H. Peter Anvin" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (X11/20070419) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Andi Kleen CC: Matt Mackall , Jonathan Campbell , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Patches for REALLY TINY 386 kernels References: <469A8AED.7070207@nerdgrounds.com> <469E3806.4030804@zytor.com> <20070718194137.GG11166@waste.org> <20070718201043.GF3898@one.firstfloor.org> In-Reply-To: <20070718201043.GF3898@one.firstfloor.org> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Andi Kleen wrote: > I was waiting for someone to make that "point" ... > >> Every byte you can shave off the compressed kernel image is another >> byte you can use for userspace on your FLASH. > > Now let's see if that 1MB 386 contains any flash at all. Guesses? > CPUID is hardly something you want to give up for modern embedded stuff. I haven't seen any new embedded stuff using anything less than a 586, and even those are disappearing quickly in favor of Geode and VIA. However, compressed size reductions as an abstract thing is useful for this market. Just not these particular ones. The first thing to get there is probably an LZMA-based compressor instead of gzip. -hpa