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How Small Can Linux Be?

Posted by Cliff on from the the-smaller-the-better dept.

Taco Cowboy asks: "In the embedded market, the smaller the better, and I've scoured the Net in my own personal search for the tiniest Linux kernel available for the embedded market, and so far, the best I can come up with is one that claims to have a 143K footprint! (Sorry, I have NOT tested that product, so I won't know if the claim is valid or not). Is there anyone out there who knows anything smaller?"

12 comments

  1. Hmm... by cperciva · · Score: 4

    If you remove all the functionality from a linux kernel, is it still a linux kernel?

    I'd say that the question you should be asking is "what is the smallest kernel which will do what I want?"

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
    1. Re:Hmm... by Larkfellow · · Score: 1
      If you remove all the functionality from a linux kernel, is it still a linux kernel?
      I'd say that the question you should be asking is "what is the smallest kernel which will do what I want?"

      I agree with this statement. A stripped down, unfunctional linux kernel is not much different than a stripped down Windows, or Mac kernel. What is the point of stripping down a linux kernel, tearing all the guts and usefullness out of it, just to say that it's a linux kernel.

      I don't mean for this to come out as flamebate, but some Linux users just use it to say that it's not windows (To a degree, I'm one of them). But when you attempt to make such a small and reduced kernel that doens't support anything. It doesn't matter if you call it Windows, Linux, BSD, or Gaggle Blobs, it still doesn't do anything.

      My point is this: There is a difference between a small and functional Kernel, and a small kernel that is just a waste of space anyways.

      --

      -- Never monkey with another Monkey's monkey

  2. Didn't they... by jcampbell · · Score: 1

    Didn't they make one that ran on a watch?

  3. Re:Pronunciation? by Socializing+Agent · · Score: 1

    I'm just not sure. I don't know if it's newsworthy yet because EL/IX is still in beta. Who knows, though?

  4. No by jaa · · Score: 1
    smaller != better

    do you want ls? ps? mount? nfs? /proc? verbose error messages? ramdisks? modutils? syslogd? telnetd?

    I'd lean towards a system that lets you have the smallest configurable footprint, while offering you the largest suite of "optional" tools, most of which are not optional during the debug sequence.

    --

    Never meant half of the things I said to you. So you know, there's a half that might be true - G. Phillips

  5. On a related note - somewhat OT... by cr0sh · · Score: 2

    Does anyone know of alternative OS's for the TRS-80 CoCo, other than OS-9 (actually, if anyone knows of an "abandonware" site for OS-9, that would be great, too)?

    I just want to try something different on my CoCo, away from the TRS DOS (m$ basic, etc), on it...

    Worldcom - Generation Duh!

    --
    Reason is the Path to God - Anon
  6. Busybox?? by whydna · · Score: 3

    Look at busybox. It's a small version of ls and friends.

  7. Re:linux proxy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The "Linux Router Project" has plenty of single-floppy Linux systems. I think here we're looking for kernels which use the least amount of RAM -- not that I'm particularly concerned about that, as I want a system with a few tools so I can make the kernel DO something.

  8. Re:Are you married to the idea of Linux? by allanj · · Score: 1

    Any idea what the minimal size of eCos is when it has Posix 1003.1 support, a fully functional TCP/IP stack, ethernet driver, RAM disk? I've been using uClinux for a while, and it weighs in at around 500-600 Kb (including all buffers), but that's a fully functional Linux system with inetd, telnetd, a shell, a couple of mounted NFS shares etc. I like it a lot but if I can get one that's smaller, I'd like that better :-)

    --
    Black holes are where God divided by zero
  9. Are you married to the idea of Linux? by Socializing+Agent · · Score: 3
    Try using eCos. It's made by the Cygnus division of RedHat, is completely open-source, and will compile a kernel in a minimum of 10kb or so. You can add the EL/IX compatibility layer to make it look like Linux, too. It runs on "eight architectures and dozens of reference platforms", so you won't be too limited in choice of arch. It's very modular; at compile time you can even choose between several schedulers based on size and speed. The "eCos developers' community page" is here.

    Good luck!

  10. I stand corrected! by Socializing+Agent · · Score: 3

    The smallest eCos footprint is 4kb (3kb ROM, 1KB RAM). It also comes with ISO C and math library runtimes, so most applications should port fairly easily.

  11. Pronunciation? by maddogsparky · · Score: 1
    How do you pronounce it? Like "echos"? Like the first part of "ecosytem"?

    It looks pretty interesting. Have you thought about posting as a seperate story?

    Questions, questions, questions...

    --
    science is a religion