Re: [PATCH 1/2] Kconfig: improve KALLSYMS_ALL documentation

[Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>]

On Mon,  4 Apr 2011 13:40:50 +0300 Artem Bityutskiy wrote:

> From: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
> 
> Dumb users like myself are not able to grasp from the existing KALLSYMS_ALL
> documentation that this option is not what they need. Improve the help
> message and make it clearer that KALLSYMS is enough in the majority of
> use cases, and KALLSYMS_ALL should really be used very rarely.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
> Cc: Paulo Marques <pmarques@grupopie.com>
> Cc: Michal Marek <mmarek@suse.cz>
> 
> ---
>  init/Kconfig |   18 ++++++++++++------
>  1 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/init/Kconfig b/init/Kconfig
> index 56240e7..dae5297 100644
> --- a/init/Kconfig
> +++ b/init/Kconfig
> @@ -968,12 +968,18 @@ config KALLSYMS_ALL
>  	bool "Include all symbols in kallsyms"
>  	depends on DEBUG_KERNEL && KALLSYMS
>  	help
> -	   Normally kallsyms only contains the symbols of functions, for nicer
> -	   OOPS messages.  Some debuggers can use kallsyms for other
> -	   symbols too: say Y here to include all symbols, if you need them 
> -	   and you don't care about adding 300k to the size of your kernel.
> -
> -	   Say N.
> +	   Normally kallsyms only contains the symbols of functions for nicer
> +	   OOPS messages and backtraces(i.e., symbols from the text and inittext

add space:                   backtraces (i.e.,

> +	   sections). This is sufficient for most cases. And only in very rare
> +	   cases (e.g., when a debugger is used) all symbols are required (e.g.,
> +	   names of variables from the data sections, etc).
> +
> +	   This option makes sure that all symbols are loaded into the kernel
> +	   image (i.e., symbols from all sections) in cost of increased kernel
> +	   size (depending on the kernel configuration, it may be 300KiB or
> +	   something like this).
> +
> +	   Say N unless you really need all symbols.
>  
>  config KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS
>  	bool "Do an extra kallsyms pass"
> -- 
> 1.7.2.3
> 
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---
~Randy
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