Re: FreeBSD/alpha kern.flp flood

Makoto Matsushita wrote:
> It seems that kern.flp for FreeBSD/alpha is flooded (tested on FreeBSD/i386).
> Maybe several kbytes should be removed from the kernel:
[ ... ]
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  1223388 Mar 28 00:57 kernel.gz
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  200864 Mar 28 00:57 loader
[ ... ]
> Anybody have an idea to reduce the size?

In theory, you could boot the kernel directly, without the
loader.  For that to work, though, you would need to do some
extra work, but that would get you 200K back.

You might also consider stripping the kernel, if it's not
stripped already; that will break some things, but probably
not things you care about when booting from a floppy.

Maybe there are some drivers, not related to the floppy,
that you could not link in, and provide kernel modules for
them on a seperate floppy; you couldn't strip the symbols,
or not keep the loader, though, in that case.  I don't really
know what's in the kernel you have there, so it's hard to
tell what baggage you have to throw overboard.

You might want to talk to Bruce.

Also, the Alpha folks might be able to pick and choose driver
sets for you, so that you could have several platform-specific
versions of floppies, by stripping platform-specific drivers
from the other floppies in the set.  You'd want to ask on the
-alpha, rther than -current, list for that; the idea may or may
not be feasible.

-- Terry