Kernel symbol file alternate location

[Kostik Belousov]

On Fri, Aug 06, 2010 at 09:29:31AM +0200, Oliver Fromme wrote:
> Daniel O'Connor wrote:
>  > On 06/08/2010, at 2:38, Oliver Fromme wrote:
>  > > > I think this is the main reason / has had to grow - the actual kernel
>  > > > is relatively small so even a 256Mb / could hold several, but with
>  > > > the symbol files it is not possible.
>  > > 
>  > > I think a very simple solution would be to install the symbol
>  > > files elsewhere (probably configurable via make.conf), and
>  > > install symlinks in the kernel directory.  If you do this,
>  > > tools using the symbol files won't have to be changed.
>  > > 
>  > > This would probably be a fairly trivial change to the install-
>  > > kernel target, I guess.  I don't have patches, though.
>  > 
>  > Yeah, I don't think it's hard to move them, however I'm worried what
>  > it will break :)
>  >
>  > The only thing I can see that would have to change would be kgdb so
>  > it tells gdb where to find the symbols.
> 
> That's why I suggested to place symlinks in the kernel
> directory.  No change to kgdb necessary.
> 
> It might even be possible to not install the symbol files
> at all, but keep them under /usr/obj, so the installkernel
> target would have to do nothing more than create symlinks.
> This could be controlled by a make.conf variable, like
> SYMLINK_SYMBOLS=YES ("NO" would be the existing behaviour
> of installing the actual symbol files in /boot/kernel).

If you keep /usr/obj around, you do not need symbol files at all,
and INSTALL_NODEBUG?=true in make.conf is enough. You can always
use kernel.debug and modules with debugging symbols from build
directory for kgdb.
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