Modular Kernel Packaging for Cloud

[Don Zickus]

On Fri, Mar 07, 2014 at 09:50:37AM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Don Zickus <dzickus at redhat.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 07, 2014 at 08:23:15AM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> >> On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 2:16 AM, Sandro "red" Mathys
> >> <red at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> >> >>> I think Josh is mostly there.  He has 58MB + 5M vmlinuz + <similar?>
> >> >>> firmwre.
> >> >>
> >> >> Firmware is owned by linux-firmware, not the kernel package.  I didn't
> >> >> include it in my kernel numbers for that reason.
> >> >>
> >> >>> He just has to cut 35MB or so from /lib/modules/.  We can probably nickel
> >> >>> and dime and review a lot of cruft to get there, but what is that 35MB
> >> >>> really doing to get us anything?  I am sure half of that can be removed by
> >> >>> re-examining the minimal-list he sent (I can even help there).
> >> >>
> >> >> Right.  Considering the bloat elsewhere in the distro, I think we can
> >> >> start with what I have and work from there if needed.
> >> >
> >> > Excellent progress there. So 35MB are already gone and I figure
> >> > (re)moving graphics, sound and other obvious things will gain us quite
> >> > some more MB. Nice job.
> >>
> >> No.  62MB are already "gone".  The 35MB was what is needed
> >> additionally to get to comparable numbers with ubuntu.  Sound I could
> >> see dropping.  Graphics, not so much.
> >>
> >> Really, I'm likely to start with what I have and if there are major
> >> reasons that get brought up (with data) to trim further, we can look
> >> at it.
> >
> > I agree too.  I think you did an awesome job Josh.  Most of the fat is
> > trimmed. :-)  Anything more should really come with some numbers/data.
> 
> Don't get too heavy on the praise yet.  This still needs to be done at
> the packaging level.  The changes to kernel.spec might make you want
> to poke your eyes out or something ;).

Oh, I thought you had the package split already into kernel-common and
kernel-drivers?

But yes I would be interesting in seeing those changes because that
filters to RHEL eventually.  I can already see RHEL developers whining
about extra packages to install... ;-)  Though all the kernel-tools stuff
seemed to have gone smoothly...

Cheers,
Don