Linux Tiny

1 Introduction
2 Resources
3 News
4 Old patch releases
5 How to use
6 Test Project and Results
7 Old usage notes
8 Ideas and patch candidates
9 Original Announcements and
e-mail

Introduction

The goal of the linux-tiny project is to reduce the memory and disk
footprint of the mainstream Linux kernel, as well as to add features to
aid working on small systems. Target users are developers of embedded
system and users of small or legacy machines such as 386s and handheld
devices.

Patch releases against the mainstream Linux kernel have been
discontinued. Instead of spending a valuable amount of time carrying
patches forward from one kernel version to the next, we chose to focus
on a few patches and spend our time trying to get them merged into the
mainline kernel.

Visit the FAQ for more information.

Resources

Patches

Available on Gitorious
(HTTP,
GIT). This repository
is currently not maintained.

Mailing Lists

Archive of linux-tiny

Presentations

Kernel Size Report presentation by Matt Mackall at Embedded Linux
Conference in April 2008.
Video
is available.
Linux-tiny
presentation
by Thomas Petazzoni (Free Electrons) at
Embedded Linux Conference in April 2008.
Video
is available.
Linux-tiny
presentation by
Michael Opdenacker (Free Electrons) at
Embedded Linux Conference Europe in November 2007.
http://elinux.org/images//8/83/Pdf.gif
Linux-tiny
revival
http://elinux.org/images/d/da/Info_circle.png
presentation given by Tim Bird at the Japan Technical Jamboree #16
in August 2007
Linux-tiny
Presentation
by Matt Mackall, delivered at CELF’s Technical Conference in April
2005.

News

A LWN.net article is at: LWN Article (Sep 2007), By Jake
Edge
Michael Opdenacker was announced as the new maintainer.
- See the project revival message to the kernel mailing
  list
A Linux Weekly News article (2003) about the project is at: LWN
Article

Old patch releases

Old release downloads

Linux 2.6.23.0:
- Media:Tiny-quilt-2.6.23-0.tar.bz2
Linux 2.6.22.5:
- Media:Tiny-quilt-2.6.22.5-1.tar.gz
Linux 2.6.22.1:
- Media:Tiny-quilt-2.6.22.1-1.tar.gz
Linux 2.6.16.19
- broken-out patchset:
  2.6.16.19-tiny1-broken-out
- Porting notes:
  notes
Linux 2.6.0 to 2.6.14:
- Older Linux-tiny patchsets can be downloaded from: Linux Tiny
  Patchset

Installation Instructions

These instructions were for the Linux-tiny release for 2.6.23. Adjust
accordingly for a different kernel version.

To apply the above patches, you need the referenced kernel (2.6.23) and
quilt
(overview). Follow these steps:

 $ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.23.tar.bz2
 $ tar -xjf linux-2.6.23.tar.bz2
 $ wget http://elinux.org/images/3/3c/Tiny-quilt-2.6.23-0.tar.bz2
 $ cd linux-2.6.23
 $ tar -xjf ../Tiny-quilt-2.6.23-0.tar.bz2
 $ quilt push -a
 $ cd ..
 $ mv linux-2.6.23 linux-2.6.23-tiny1

Auxiliary tools (for Linux-tiny developers)

Here is a short shell script for making a tiny-quilt release:
Media:release-tiny

How to use

In the Kernel Size Tuning
Guide, there is a
lot of information about how to measure kernel size, and how to use the
kernel patches and configuration items provided by Linux-tiny.

Test Project and Results

There is a test for Linux-tiny (and kernel configuration option results,
in general). Some test results from this test were previously available
from the CE Linux Forum test lab, at:
http://testlab.celinuxforum.org/otlwiki/ConfigSizeTestResults
(link is now broken).

The CELF System Size working group has worked extensively with the
Linux-tiny patch set. There is a script to produce a report of size
reductions for the individual patches in the patchset, and results from
various vendors about their use of Linux-tiny. See Linux Tiny Test
Project