rfc Kernel .config support as LKM instead of static bind?

[windysea 4]

Currently all of the Armbian kernel defconfigs include the actual build configuration statically as part of the kernel.  The standard Armbian build process also includes a copy of the .config file in /boot/config-<version>-<platform>.

 

Are both required, or should the kernel configurations be updated to make Kernel .config support an LKM instead of static bind?

 

True this is a minor item.  The actual kernel configuration takes up a very small amount of memory, though on many SBCs with limited memory to start with every byte not used by the kernel can help.

 

This would amount to changing from:

CONFIG_IKCONFIG=y

to:

CONFIG_IKCONFIG=m

 

 

About the only thing that might "break" would be any tools that use 'extract-ikconfig' or similar against the on-disk binary to extract the built-in .config, but with the kernel configuration already included in the linux-image-*.deb and installed under /boot as a separate text file this should not be needed.

 

I can submit a PR for -DEV if this sounds reasonable for all of the existing defconfigs in config/kernel but wanted feedback on whether this would be useful or whether this should be left as-is.

 

[martinayotte 678]

12 hours ago, windysea said:

I can submit a PR for -DEV if this sounds reasonable for all of the existing defconfigs in config/kernel but wanted feedback on whether this would be useful or whether this should be left as-is.

Right ! But how much memory gain this will provide ?