A thought about kernels
When thinking about kernel support in emdebian, for some boards/boxes
it is never going to be possible to have tailored kernels available - there
would just be too many and it would be difficult to maintain them from
release to release with new kernel options appearing all the time.
However for the rest at least as a starter, having a stock kernel is possible.
An example of this are the PcEngines Alix boards, and mini-ITX boards, most
of which need either a -486 or -686 kernel.
However the standard kernels from debian, even with the documentation
and other unnecessary stuff removed, are enormous - which is fine because
they are designed to run on a wide variety of hardware so (almost) all
possible modules are included, and on the systems at which they are aimed
disk space is not at a premium. The 486 kernel, for example, says it
needs 68M of disk space when installed.
But for many boards with either CF or NAND storage, space is at a premium.
However the udebs used by the debian installer for the kernel are packaged
rather differently, with the kernel and the modules separated out. So the
base kernel is only 3M, and then you add the modules, or at least module
families that you need. So you might choose to ignore LVM, but include
all the wireless nics on a board intended as a wireless router.
Now I am not quite sure how the udebs differ from debs, and whether it would
be easy to adapt to using them, but if it were possible I am sure it would be
useful.
David
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