Re: [PATCH] Compress kernel modules on installation

Roland
2008-12-26T20:24:17Z

what about some "make modules_install_compressed" instead ?

as i have run out of diskspace quite often when installing test kernels, i
think we really need a feature like this.

i`d also favour the makefile approach.
why another kconfig option?

jan`s patch looks clean and simple, but i think it`s a little bit
intrusive...

regards
roland

ps:
i`d use gzip without "-9" as this gives very little space savings. it mostly
burns cpu and slows things down too much.
( see
http://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/linuxjournal/articles/080/8051/8051f1.png )

On Friday 2008-12-26 20:48, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > > >
> > > > This patch allows kernel modules to be compressed when 'make
> > > > modules_install' is run after being copied to
> > > > the /lib/module/<version>/<...> directory which is useful if you
> > > > have
> > > > module-init-tools installed with --enable-zlib. This patch adds an
> > > > option (MODULE_COMPRESS) to the kernel configuration file
> > > > (specifically
> > > > init/Kconfig) so that the kernel modules will compressed if
> > > > MODULE_COMPRESS is set.
> >
> > I recently started compressing my kernel modules and that saved me
> > at least 70 MB of disk space on mostlyallmodconfig.
> > (And no, the argument of disks being cheap is not so true with
> > CF or SSD.)
> > Distro is lazy and wants to wait for upstream to have it,
> > so is there any chance of getting this proposal in?
>
> Steve said he wanted to try to make the solution more
> scalable so I am awaiting a new patch.

Hm, all I needed was this patch. It might fire up some people,
but it's got all the scalability I could think of..

commit b4a3e1c610c99d4e8b543b97fd722076c6f7c5dd
Author: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@medozas.de>
Date: Wed Dec 10 20:39:21 2008 +0100

build: install modules compressed
---
scripts/Makefile.modinst | 2 +-
1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/scripts/Makefile.modinst b/scripts/Makefile.modinst
index efa5d94..c3421a1 100644
--- a/scripts/Makefile.modinst
+++ b/scripts/Makefile.modinst
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ __modinst: $(modules)
@:

quiet_cmd_modules_install = INSTALL $@
- cmd_modules_install = mkdir -p $(2); cp $@ $(2) ; $(mod_strip_cmd) \
$(2)/$(notdir $@) + cmd_modules_install = mkdir -p $(2); cp $@ $(2) ; \
$(mod_strip_cmd) $(2)/$(notdir $@); gzip -9f $(2)/$(notdir $@)
# Modules built outside the kernel source tree go into extra by default
INSTALL_MOD_DIR ?= extra
--