Fast LKM symbol resolution with SysV ELH hash table

[Carmelo Amoroso <carmelo73@gmail.com>]

Hi,
I'm just sending this message to report about a work I've recently done
to speed-up symbol resolution for modules by using a SysV ELF hash table
(without relying upon binutils support).
This work has been presented few days ago at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe.

Patches are already publicly available for 2.6.23 kernel @STLinux git
(http://git.stlinux.com/?p=stm/linux-sh4-2.6.23.y.git;a=summary)

For 2.6.30 already ported but not yet available.

Benchmarks have shown an average reduction of 96% in time spent for symbol resolution
(that is 25x faster).

All details can be found at
http://tree.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/ELCEurope2009Presentations?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=C_AMOROSO_Fast_lkm_loader_ELC-E_2009.pdf

I'm working to update them to mainline and post for review and discussion.
We are also working right now to update this work too to use GNU hash instead of SysV ELF hash

Carmelo