Re: [9fans] how small can you get

[jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com]

On Thu Feb  7 19:23:15 EST 2002, rminnich@lanl.gov wrote:
> just wondering, what's the smallest plan9 kernel seen to date.
> 
> No graphics, just an enet device and an IDE and no network.
> 
> ron

You don't specify when or for which architecture. This is the oldest
x86 kernel I could find in a public place:

o% size /n/bootesdump/1991/1102/386/9safari
162289t + 132096d + 227168b = 521553	/n/bootesdump/1991/1102/386/9safari
o% 

and here are the other kernels from that time:

o% size /n/bootesdump/1991/1102/*/9
125738t + 53604d + 210996b = 390338	/n/bootesdump/1991/1102/68020/9
266448t + 44456d + 516736b = 827640	/n/bootesdump/1991/1102/mips/9
197000t + 45600d + 34536b = 277136	/n/bootesdump/1991/1102/sparc/9
o% 


On Thu Feb  7 20:54:13 EST 2002, schwartz@bio.cse.psu.edu wrote:
> | I just built a stripped down pc kernel --
> | IDE, CGA, no ether, no network, and got 
> | about 361kb.
> 
> I'm surprised it is that big.  Back in the days of 4.2BSD, normal
> kernels were smaller than that.  But maybe the vax had better code
> density than x86.

I don't have easy access to a 4.2BSD kernel, so this will have to do:

o% pwd
/rls/unix/4.3bsd/GENERIC
o% ls -l vmunix
--rwxr-xr-x M 49476 0 10 407552 Jun  6  1986 vmunix
o% xd -s -4d vmunix|sed 2q
0000000  0000000264 0000279844 0000080872 0000100324
0000010  0000025716 2147488504 0000000000 0000000000
o% hoc
279844+80872+100324
461040