[RFC 0/5] ath79: add a lower RAM-using version of 8/32 devices

[Sven Roederer]

Am Sonntag, 6. Dezember 2020, 11:03:56 CET schrieb Baptiste Jonglez:
> Hi,
> 
> On 06-12-20, Sven Roederer wrote:
> > Currently 8MB flash / 32MB RAM devices are fully supported in OpenWrt, as
> > they work quite well for basic usage (including full LuCI).
> > On some projects with advanced features (e.g. Freifunk) the lack of RAM
> > turns them into unstable devices. Mostly caused by several OOM problems
> > per day. This series tries to prolong the usage of these boards by moving
> > them to the ath79-tiny target. Indeed it makes these boards available on
> > ath79-tiny in addition to the current ath79-generic variant.
> 
> Can't you just move the boards instead of duplicating them?
> 
For sure this should be done, in the final merge. Having the same board in 
different subtargets might confuse ...


> > [RFC PATCH 4/5] kernel: ath79-tiny deactivate usually not needed features
> 
> Can you provide an overview of kernel memory consumption before and after?
> /proc/vmstat just after boot would give an idea.
> 

Having all this features diabled gives for the kernel of a Nanostation M XM 
ubnt_nanostation-m-kernel.bin:
  - ath79-generic: 1792151
  - ath79-tiny: 1500108
vmlinux:
  - ath79-generic: 5588220
  - ath79-tiny: 4687644

So a bit more than 16% smaller size, or 900k absolute. A direct runtime 
comparision I can't provide at the moment, as my test device is running other 
stuff already.

Sven