• Location: Nuremberg office
• Mood: artistic
• Music: Unheilig: Für immer

Restricting Linux kernel configure options to currently used set

git is great for bisecting regressions (or finding a fix in a series of commits) - but compiling the kernel can take ages, especially if you have to do it on an Atom, and with the configuration of your favorite distribution...

Now finally I created a perl script for reducing the default config to the set of modules that are currently actually loaded. Reduces kernel compilation times on a quad core machine from 56 minutes to 6 for a standard SLED kernel Guess it's even more difference on this !@#$% Atom...

Usage:

# cd /var/tmp/linux-2.6	or wherever your git tree is located
# gunzip </proc/config.gz >.config	to get the current configuration
# make oldconfig	to add new options for current kernel
# ~/linux-adaptconfig.pl >.config.new	to remove all not required options
# mv .config.new .config
# make oldconfig	to be on the save side...
# make -j5	build, mother*beep*, build :-)

Yes, it's a hack. No, it's certainly not perfect. But it might be exactly what you had been waiting for. I waited long enough to actually write it myself...