Re: what is the stack size in Debian kernels?

[Kevin Buhr <buhr+debian@asaurus.net>]

"H.S." <hs.samix@gmail.com> writes:
>
> This may be a dumb questions, but how do I find what stack size that my
> Debian kernel (2.6.12) has? More generally, how do I determine the stack
> size of any running Linux kernel? Is there an option in the .config file
> that determins the stack size?

As others have pointed out, for the i386 architecture, there are only
two stack sizes available in the "normal" kernel.  8K is the default,
but there is a CONFIG_4KSTACKS configuration variable that changes it
to 4K (but uses a separate stack for interrupt handling to partially
compensate).

Debian kernel-image packages don't normally have the "/proc/config.gz"
feature enabled, but they should install a copy of the ".config" used
to build the kernel in a "/boot/config-*" file, and no stock Debian
kernels have this variable set, as far as I know, so the Debian stack
should be the default of 8k.

A patch to add a 16k stacks option that *also* uses a separate
interrupt-handling stack to give even more free space is available at:

    http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/wlan/full/archive/linux-2.6.12-16kstacks.patch

-- 
Kevin Buhr <buhr+debian@asaurus.net>