On a whim, I decided to see how big the "absolute core" of the kernel 
is, using the most minimalist i386 configuration I possibly could, 
building it, and seeing how large the .o files ended up being (ignoring 
obvious built-in.o et al).  A file stood out drastically above all of 
the others: kernel/perf-event.o, at ~62K (~41K if I run strip on it).  I 
wasn't paying much attention around the time that the "perf" things were 
added to Linux, but I was wondering if this system is in any way 
removable from the latest kernel entirely.

I've attached the .config I used to build, though it's unlikely to 
matter in relation to my question.  There's not much documentation in 
the kernel tree about the "perf" stuff, so if someone has a link to 
something more comprehensive than the "it counts performance stuff" in 
the menuconfig help, I'd appreciate that too.

As always, thanks in advance.

Jody Lee Bruchon

(Please CC replies to me directly.)