Message-ID: <4AC4F67C.7010500@natemccallum.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:35:40 -0400
From: Nathaniel McCallum <nathaniel@natemccallum.com>
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To: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Exposing device ids and driver names
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On 10/01/2009 02:05 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 01, 2009 at 01:01:50PM -0400, Nathaniel McCallum wrote:
>> On 10/01/2009 12:42 PM, Greg KH wrote:
>>> Why not just use the baseline kernel as a model for this.  Do a 'make
>>> allmodconfig' and then extract the data and publish it that way.  No
>>> kernel changes are needed, and then any distro can be easily matched up
>>> by this based on what they are using.  That will save you time in
>>> downloading zillions of distro releases, and provide a nice easy way to
>>> show what the kernel.org releases support.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I would not be able to track changes to the kernel in
>> this model.  Since this is one of my explicit goals (to make sure that
>> distro kernel changes get upstream), I think a non-invasive kernel
>> modification would be worth the effort.
>
> But this was an invasive modification, it added space to the kernel
> images for no real benifit other than for your tracking tools.  That's
> not going to fly unless you can find another good use for the change.

Which is why I asked for advice for better options.  I would prefer a 
non-invasive modification.  I am hoping that someone more familiar with 
the layer would provide such a suggestion.

One potential benefit for moving module info to ELF sections would be 
the ability to strip kernel modules.  As a test, I did this on a recent 
Fedora rawhide kernel I had lying around.  Stripping the modules results 
in a 43% decrease in size (82M to 47M).

But I still would prefer a non-invasive solution.

Nathaniel
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