Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1765613AbXFSAL0 (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:11:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1762336AbXFSALT (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:11:19 -0400 Received: from outbound-sin.frontbridge.com ([207.46.51.80]:12873 "EHLO outbound7-sin-R.bigfish.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755559AbXFSALS (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:11:18 -0400 X-BigFish: VP X-MS-Exchange-Organization-Antispam-Report: OrigIP: 160.33.98.75;Service: EHS Message-ID: <46771F9F.40608@am.sony.com> Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:13:19 -0700 From: Tim Bird User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (X11/20060614) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Gerrit Huizenga CC: holzheu@linux.vnet.ibm.com, Jan Kara , Andrew Morton , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, randy.dunlap@oracle.com, gregkh@suse.de, mtk-manpages@gmx.net, schwidefsky@de.ibm.com, heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com, "lf_kernel_messages@linux-foundation.org" Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH] Documentation of kernel messages References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Jun 2007 00:10:51.0209 (UTC) FILETIME=[4BA65B90:01C7B206] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2098 Lines: 54 Gerrit Huizenga wrote: > Further, yet another kernel config option could allow distros to output > the calculated MD5 sum to be printed, much like we do with timestamps > today. > Comments? Would the compiled-in text then also become replaceable? Or is the MD5 sum output expected to be in addition to the regular English message? If message replacement at compile-time is supported, this could allow for creating "short" versions of the messages, which could have a beneficial impact on kernel size. Right now, it is possible to completely disable printks and re-claim about 100K of memory. However, in some embedded configurations, even if you are space-constrained it's desirable to retain some of the printks, for in-field debugging. Thus not very many embedded developers disable printks completely, even though the option has been supported for a while. (That, and many aren't caught up to the kernel version where it was introduced (2.6.10) :-) But compressed messages (shortened text through abbreviations, or just outputting the ID alone, etc.) could save SOME of the space, in trade for less readability. Heck, just removing all vowels would probably save 10k, and not hurt readability that much. Finally, for testing, it's handy to also have automatic translation generators. At a former company I worked for, they had translators that would output: * all messages shortened by 20% * all messages lengthened by 20% * every message converted to pig-latin These were mostly used for testing if the strings broke screen real-estate constraints (which don't apply to kernel messages). But the automatic translators would sometimes catch messages with weird attributes. ============================= Tim Bird Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Corporation of America ============================= - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/