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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?"

5 of 12 comments (clear)

  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
  2. 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
  3. Busybox?? by whydna · · Score: 3

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

  4. 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!

  5. 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.