Re: [PATCH-next v4] arm32: enable HAVE_LD_DEAD_CODE_DATA_ELIMINATION
From: Ard Biesheuvel
Date: Tue Mar 19 2024 - 13:13:27 EST
On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 at 03:44, Yuntao Liu <liuyuntao12@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> The current arm32 architecture does not yet support the
> HAVE_LD_DEAD_CODE_DATA_ELIMINATION feature. arm32 is widely used in
> embedded scenarios, and enabling this feature would be beneficial for
> reducing the size of the kernel image.
>
> In order to make this work, we keep the necessary tables by annotating
> them with KEEP, also it requires further changes to linker script to KEEP
> some tables and wildcard compiler generated sections into the right place.
> When using ld.lld for linking, KEEP is not recognized within the OVERLAY
> command, and Ard proposed a concise method to solve this problem.
>
> It boots normally with defconfig, vexpress_defconfig and tinyconfig.
>
> The size comparison of zImage is as follows:
> defconfig vexpress_defconfig tinyconfig
> 5137712 5138024 424192 no dce
> 5032560 4997824 298384 dce
> 2.0% 2.7% 29.7% shrink
>
> When using smaller config file, there is a significant reduction in the
> size of the zImage.
>
> We also tested this patch on a commercially available single-board
> computer, and the comparison is as follows:
> a15eb_config
> 2161384 no dce
> 2092240 dce
> 3.2% shrink
>
> The zImage size has been reduced by approximately 3.2%, which is 70KB on
> 2.1M.
>
> Signed-off-by: Yuntao Liu <liuyuntao12@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Tested-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@xxxxxxxxxx>