[Debian-eeepc-devel] 5 second boot

[Phil Endecott]

Santi B?jar wrote:
>> They built a custom kernel with the required modules compiled in.  I
>> don't think this project would want to distribute a custom kernel,
>> would it?  Alternatives include distributing kernel config files.  I
>> have also wondered if it is possible to
>>
>>   lsmod | some-magic-script > .config
>
> Or even better :-)
>
> lsmod | some-magic-script > vmlinuz

It turns out that Steven Rostedt had already written something related:

   http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/734536/match=streamline%5fconfig

His script runs lsmod and removes the config settings for modules that 
you're not using.  What I want is to convert CONFIG_FOO=m to 
CONFIG_FOO=y for the modules in the lsmod output; this is a two-line 
change.  I've put my script here:

   http://chezphil.org/tmp/buildin_used_mods.pl

This isn't quite perfect as some module-vs-builtin settings depend on 
others.  You need to run "make menuconfig" to sort these out.  
Specifically, there's an IDE option that needs to be "y" before the 
particular driver can be "y" too.  Also there are a few things that 
can't be built-in, such as uvesafb.

I've put the resulting .config here:

   http://chezphil.org/tmp/eee901-kernel-config-2.6.27

(This also has lots of other modules for hardware that you couldn't 
physically connect to an Eee disabled.)

The result is a 10 second improvement in boot time.  This is due to not 
having an initd any more and also not needing to load all those 
modules.  I'm not sure which of those two is more significant, but I 
suspect that it's getting rid of the initrd.

This is with 2.6.27 which seems to be working, apart from the wireless 
[see other thread].


Phil.