Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] minitty: a minimal TTY layer alternative for embedded systems

From: Andy Shevchenko
Date: Mon Apr 03 2017 - 17:05:47 EST


+Cc: Tom

Summon Tom to the discussion. He tried once hard to shrink a Linux
kernel to something working in 1M+ RAM on x86.

Tom, sorry, I recall this a bit late, perhaps you might be interested
in reading discussion from the beginning.

On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 9:14 PM, Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:44 AM, Stuart Longland
> <stuartl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On 03/04/17 07:41, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
>>>> No PTYs seems like a big limitation. This means no sshd?
>>> Again, my ultimate system target is in the sub-megabyte of RAM. I
>>> really doubt you'll be able to fit an SSH server in there even if PTYs
>>> were supported, unless sshd (or dropbear) can be made really tiny.
>>> Otherwise you most probably have sufficient resources to run the regular
>>> TTY code.
>>
>> Are we talking small microcontrollers here? The smallest machine in
>> terms of RAM I ever recall running Linux on was a 386SX/25 MHz with 4MB
>> RAM, and that had a MMU.
>
> Let's halve that. I once tried and ran Linux in 2 MiB, incl. X, twm, and xterm.
> Of course with swap enabled. And swapping like hell.


--
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko