Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753332Ab1DEKVw (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2011 06:21:52 -0400 Received: from smtp.nokia.com ([147.243.128.24]:30813 "EHLO mgw-da01.nokia.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752967Ab1DEKVt (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2011 06:21:49 -0400 From: Artem Bityutskiy To: Michal Marek Cc: linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Paulo Marques , Randy Dunlap Subject: [PATCH v2 1/2] Kconfig: improve KALLSYMS_ALL documentation Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 13:24:57 +0300 Message-Id: <1301999098-21412-1-git-send-email-dedekind1@gmail.com> X-Mailer: git-send-email 1.7.2.3 X-Nokia-AV: Clean Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2022 Lines: 53 From: Artem Bityutskiy Dumb users like myself are not able to grasp from the existing KALLSYMS_ALL documentation that this option is not what they need. Improve the help message and make it clearer that KALLSYMS is enough in the majority of use cases, and KALLSYMS_ALL should really be used very rarely. Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy --- init/Kconfig | 18 ++++++++++++------ 1 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) Changelog: v1->v2: * Spelling fix diff --git a/init/Kconfig b/init/Kconfig index 56240e7..563065d 100644 --- a/init/Kconfig +++ b/init/Kconfig @@ -968,12 +968,18 @@ config KALLSYMS_ALL bool "Include all symbols in kallsyms" depends on DEBUG_KERNEL && KALLSYMS help - Normally kallsyms only contains the symbols of functions, for nicer - OOPS messages. Some debuggers can use kallsyms for other - symbols too: say Y here to include all symbols, if you need them - and you don't care about adding 300k to the size of your kernel. - - Say N. + Normally kallsyms only contains the symbols of functions for nicer + OOPS messages and backtraces (i.e., symbols from the text and inittext + sections). This is sufficient for most cases. And only in very rare + cases (e.g., when a debugger is used) all symbols are required (e.g., + names of variables from the data sections, etc). + + This option makes sure that all symbols are loaded into the kernel + image (i.e., symbols from all sections) in cost of increased kernel + size (depending on the kernel configuration, it may be 300KiB or + something like this). + + Say N unless you really need all symbols. config KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS bool "Do an extra kallsyms pass" -- 1.7.2.3 -- 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/