GSOC 2013 project " Kernel Size Reduction for Embedded System "

[Alfred Perlstein]

On 4/8/13 4:10 PM, Adrian Chadd wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Your idea is interesting, but it doesn't fix the underlying problem -
> there's just too much code. :(
>
If you were to API'ify some of the more basic things such as fget, 
fdrop, filedesc stuff you could potentially swap out the systems for 
simpler (albeit less efficient) algorithms, the cost there may be slow 
smp performance, or maybe not allowing threads?

What we really need is someone to pin down those parts of code that 
smaller systems may not need and provide compromise when we remove them.

Other ideas are simple like for instance removing certain syscalls (for 
example, more recent ones such as openat) and features such as unix 
descriptor passing.

However, until a bunch of embedded folks come forward and state what 
they are really willing to sacrifice, then we won't really have anything 
to go on, and it will be guessing at what will work for a space that not 
all of us are familiar with.

So I'm hoping some people can make the tough call to give direction 
here, otherwise nothing good will come of it.

Has anyone actually done this?  Or maybe compared against another 
embedded OS?

-Alfred