8.0-RELEASE -> -STABLE and size of /

[Adrian Wontroba]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 05:21:56PM +0100, Oliver Brandmueller wrote:
> 
> I just noticed somthing: I setup an 8.0-RELEASE amd64 box, / is default 
> 512M. First step after setup was to csup to RELENG_8 and buildkernel and 
> buildworld (no custom kernel, no make.conf).
> 
> Instaling the new kernel failed, since /boot/kernel/ is already well 
> over 230 MBytes in size. moving that to kernel.old and writing a new one 
> with about the same size fails due to no space left on device.
> 
> This is not a question; I do know how to get around this and how to 
> configure custom kernels so they are a fragment of that size afterwards. 
> However, I think this is a clear POLA violation. So, either GENERIC with 
> less debugging information (symbols and stuff), which makes debugging 
> harder or setting a higher default for / would be options, if not anyone 
> else has better ideas.

/usr/src/UPDATING has this which will allow you to remove symbols when
installing a kernel:

20060118:
	This actually occured some time ago, but installing the kernel
	now also installs a bunch of symbol files for the kernel modules.
	This increases the size of /boot/kernel to about 67Mbytes. You
	will need twice this if you will eventually back this up to kernel.old
	on your next install.
	If you have a shortage of room in your root partition, you should add
	-DINSTALL_NODEBUG to your make arguments or add INSTALL_NODEBUG="yes"
	to your /etc/make.conf.

I concur that the 235 MB size of an amd64 8.0 kernel is a bit of a
surprise. An i386 kernel is a mere 135 MB.  IMO increasing the sysinstall
default root slice size for at least amd64 would be a good thing.

-- 
Adrian Wontroba