> this is an idea that I think possible.
>
> It is possible to fit all the driver initialization & probing code in a
> separate ELF section that can be discarded after kernel initializations ?
>
> This code, after the kernel initialization, is unused, why don't free it ?
heh :) when i first read the ELF standard i came up with the very same
idea ... then i was told that this idea is almost as old as Linux itself,
and that it comes up regularly on linux-kernel, but nobody has done it so
far.
now that we definitely do ELF bootloading only, it's the right time to
start thinking about the details? :)
btw, imho it would be cleaner if we did it this way:
- define an 'init module'. This 'module' can be unloaded after booting
has finished. Just by calling 'rmmod initmodule' from user-space.
the boot code has to set up this 'module', and we need support from the
kernel image linker too. The kernel could decrease the kernel usage
counter once all init functions in it were called?
-- mingo