Re: [PATCH] RISC-V: Make BSS section as the last section in vmlinux.lds.S

From: Anup Patel
Date: Tue Dec 18 2018 - 03:23:39 EST


On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 6:29 PM Nick Kossifidis <mick@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> ÎÏÎÏ 2018-12-17 11:36, Anup Patel ÎÎÏÎÏÎ:
> > On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 11:42 AM Anup Patel <anup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> The objcopy only emits loadable sections when creating flat kernel
> >> Image. To have minimal possible size of flat kernel Image, we should
> >> have all non-loadable sections after loadable sections.
> >>
> >> Currently, execption table section (loadable section) is after BSS
> >> section (non-loadable section) in the RISC-V vmlinux.lds.S. This
> >> is not optimal for having minimal flat kernel Image size hence this
> >> patch makes BSS section as the last section in RISC-V vmlinux.lds.S.
> >>
> >> In addition, we make BSS section aligned to 16byte instead of PAGE
> >> aligned which further reduces flat kernel Image size by few KBs.
> >>
> >> The flat kernel Image size of Linux-4.20-rc4 using GCC 8.2.0 is
> >> 8819980 bytes with current RISC-V vmlinux.lds.S and it reduces to
> >> 7991740 bytes with this patch applied using GCC 8.2.0. In summary,
> >> this patch reduces Linux-4.20-rc4 flat kernel Image size by 809 KB.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Anup Patel <anup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> ---
> >> arch/riscv/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S | 4 ++--
> >> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/arch/riscv/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
> >> b/arch/riscv/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
> >> index 65df1dfdc303..cc99eed44931 100644
> >> --- a/arch/riscv/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
> >> +++ b/arch/riscv/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
> >> @@ -74,8 +74,6 @@ SECTIONS
> >> *(.sbss*)
> >> }
> >>
> >> - BSS_SECTION(PAGE_SIZE, PAGE_SIZE, 0)
> >> -
> >> EXCEPTION_TABLE(0x10)
> >> NOTES
> >>
> >> @@ -83,6 +81,8 @@ SECTIONS
> >> *(.rel.dyn*)
> >> }
> >>
> >> + BSS_SECTION(0x10, 0x10, 0x10)
> >> +
> >> _end = .;
> >>
> >> STABS_DEBUG
> >> --
> >> 2.17.1
> >>
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Any comment on this patch?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Anup
> >
>
> Just a note on coding style, you should be using a macro instead of 0x10
> so that those who read the code can understand what it is and also a few
> comments since searching through the commit logs to understand why you
> used it isn't optimal.

RISC-V can support 32bit, 64bit and 128bit machine-word sizes.

The 0x10 number is the machine-word size in bytes for 128bit
RISC-V CPU (i.e. maximum machine-word size).

I will add a macro MAX_BYTES_PER_LONG in vmlinux.lds.S and
use it in-place of 0x10

Regards,
Anup