Section 19 specifies that the SPARC64 kernel must be smaller than 3.6 MB and the SPARC32 must not exceed 2.5 MB. I have several recommendations for additional information: In code listing 19.5 (Checking vmlinux's size): # ls -alh vmlinux will produce "human-readable" size output, assisting users in verifying size requirements when it is close to the limit. The Warning below that directs the user to "...return to "Configuring the Linux Kernel" above. Reconfigure and recompile your kernel until it is within the specified limits." However, new users might not be aware that they can accomplish this, in part, by building more of the kernel as modules, and I think this should be noted. Also, you might want to re-iterate that some of the support *must*, however, be built-in, as is previously-stated in the section. Finally, there is no mention of performing a: # strip vmlinux before verifying its size. On my Ultra 5, I was, I thought, extremely selective in including only features that were necessary and matched up to specific hardware in my system (I un-checked *a lot* of stuff that was enabled by default), and about making as many of them as modules as possible. Nonetheless, I ended up with a kernel that was just shy of the 3.6 MB limit, but "strip vmlinux" shrank it to 3.0 MB. This might be an invaluable tool to mention, especially for a noob working on older, slower hardware, where the kernel size limit is 2.5 MB and the re-compile time might be measured in hours or (*gulp*) days. Finally, a minor typographical issue. The heading of Section 19 is "Installing the kernel *and a System Logger*" but installing a system logger is actually covered in Section 20: Installing a System Logger, and ssh. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce:
Unfortunately, 'strip vmlinux' will quite often make your kernel unbootable...
"strip -R .comment -R .note vmlinux" works better and won't smoke your kernel either. I've done it enough times making cobalt kernels to know this.
Can I use that strip command in the guide then?
As a side note, striping is known to be dangerous on sparc32 but quite safe on sparc64.
The more recent kernels have a "make image" option which will do all of the safe stripping of the image and leave the output in the file arch/sparc/boot/image or arch/sparc64/boot/image depending on the arch.. Not sure when this started showing up.
FWIW, the Gentoo Handbook uses the "vmlinux-2.4.22" format, so it might not be a bad idea to make that consistent between the two, one way or another. :)
What is "more recent kernels"?
At least the 2.4.21 and 2.4.22 kernels. I'd have to ask to find out how far back it goes. This should be fine for sparc as both sparc-sources and vanilla-sources have >=2.4.21 marked as stable. As a side note, make image is make vmlinux + safe stripping of vmlinux.
Created attachment 21243 [details] Tail end of errors likely resulting from "make image" Sorry I don't have more of a backbuffer for you--let me know if you want me to try anything further. I think that "make image" failed on my machine, but I don't have much experience with make, so let me know what your impression is. The command I issued was "make dep && make clean image modules modules_install" so I can't be certain what phase of that was executing at the time of the error, but I think the results are indicating "make image" was the culprit. If you need further info/testing, just let me know. Thanks for all the hard work.
BTW, this compiled completely using the same config file and "make dep && make clean vmlinux modules modules_install"
Created attachment 21269 [details, diff] Patch to gentoo-sparc-install.xml
Created attachment 21270 [details, diff] Patch to hb-install-kernel.xml
Okay, these two patches add information regarding this issue to the sparc-install and handbook. However, before getting this in them, I need the consent of a sparc devel on this.
Looks good to me. For the non-handbook patch, I believe s/therefor/therefore/ (without the e is a legalese word) is correct. For the handbook, is 'Mb' consistent with the rest of the handbook? I'd be inclined to go for 'MBytes' for clarity.
There isn't a real consistency yet, perhaps I'll update the guide when I know which way is the best (MByte, Mbyte, Mb, MB, Megabyte, megabyte, mebibytes, MiB, Mib, ...).
Created attachment 21273 [details, diff] Patch to gentoo-sparc-install.xml
Okay, committed.
I've always understood and seen: MB = megabytes = Mbytes Mb = megabits As far as kernel config and *must* be built-in, it's really up to the user. However it's probably conservative for anything marked "Required for Gentoo linux" to be compiled into the kernel and not as modules.
