Subject: How big is the Linux/MIPS kernel?

From: Mike McDonald <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:13:43 -0700

Could someone tell me how big the kernel is for the MIPS chip? I
need a rough estimate of the size of a minimal kernel with networking
support, probably no file systems nor disks. A project I'm working on
is currently using VxWorks. We're suppose to add a bunch of large, off
the shelf software components to it and I'm worried about running
everything in one unprotected address space. (All it takes is the web
browser to hickup and the box will crash. But hey, no one has ever
heard of a web browser crashing!) Does anyone have an estimate of the
process switching time? That's one of the things the hardware types
harp about for their multimedia apps.

  Thanks

  Mike McDonald
  [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Ariel Faigon)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:24:49 -0700 (PDT)

:
:
:  Could someone tell me how big the kernel is for the MIPS chip? I
:need a rough estimate of the size of a minimal kernel with networking
:support, probably no file systems nor disks. A project I'm working on
:is currently using VxWorks. We're suppose to add a bunch of large, off
:the shelf software components to it and I'm worried about running
:everything in one unprotected address space. (All it takes is the web
:browser to hickup and the box will crash. But hey, no one has ever
:heard of a web browser crashing!) Does anyone have an estimate of the
:process switching time? That's one of the things the hardware types
:harp about for their multimedia apps.
:
:  Thanks
:
:  Mike McDonald
:  [email-masked]
:

11:26 ariel@info /hosts/neteng.engr/home/dm/alambie> size vmlinux 

           Section           Size        Physical        Virtual
                                         Address         Address

               .text      809344        2282131456      2282131456      
             .rodata       71264        2282940800      2282940800      
            .reginfo          24        2283012064      2283012064      
               .data       90848        2283012096      2283012096      
               .sbss         349        2283102944      2283102944      
                .bss      131324        2283103296      2283103296      
880632 + 90848 + 131673 = 1103153

-- 
Peace, Ariel

---

From: [email-masked] (Ariel Faigon)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:35:56 -0700 (PDT)

:
:11:26 ariel@info /hosts/neteng.engr/home/dm/alambie> size vmlinux 
:
:
:           Section           Size        Physical        Virtual
:                                         Address         Address
:
:               .text      809344        2282131456      2282131456      
:             .rodata       71264        2282940800      2282940800      
:            .reginfo          24        2283012064      2283012064      
:               .data       90848        2283012096      2283012096      
:               .sbss         349        2283102944      2283102944      
:                .bss      131324        2283103296      2283103296      
:880632 + 90848 + 131673 = 1103153
:
Maybe I should have added:

That's less than half the size of IRIX (6.3 on my Indy)
and about a quarter of the size of IRIX64 (6.4 on info.engr)

Of course, IRIX has much more in it, like XFS, Trusted IRIX,
Real Time and priority-classes scheduling, MPP (in 6.4), digital
media device drivers ..., but I thought you may want to know the numbers.

IRIX64:	2992844 (text) + 967960 (data) + 405460 (bss) = 4366264  (6.4)
IRIX:   2224072 (text) + 202752 (data) + 196560 (bss) = 2623384  (6.3)

-- 
Peace, Ariel

---

From: "David S. Miller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 22:13:11 -0400

There was a bug in the linker/assembler/gcc that I don't recall if I
fixed for the kernel build tools.  What it would do is leave the
symbol information for all local compiler generated symbols in the
kernel image (the problem was gcc was generating local symbols using
one convention and the linker/assembler were expecting them to be in
another format, so they just got left in the symbol table).

This would cut down the size of the Linux kernel quite a bit.  I know
I fixed it in the userland gcc because this bug prevented some
important programs (lat_ctx ;-) from compiling due to ELF symbol table
overflows.

---------------------------------------------////
Yow! 11.26 MB/s remote host TCP bandwidth & ////
199 usec remote TCP latency over 100Mb/s   ////
ethernet.  Beat that!                     ////
-----------------------------------------////__________  o
David S. Miller, [email-masked] /_____________/ / // /_/ ><