1518c633df
CONFIG_TRIM_UNUSED_KSYMS currently removes all unused exported symbols from ksymtab. This works really well when using in-tree drivers, but cannot be used in its current form if some of them are out-of-tree. Indeed, even if the list of symbols required by out-of-tree drivers is known at compile time, the only solution today to guarantee these don't get trimmed is to set CONFIG_TRIM_UNUSED_KSYMS=n. This not only wastes space, but also makes it difficult to control the ABI usable by vendor modules in distribution kernels such as Android. Being able to control the kernel ABI surface is particularly useful to ship a unique Generic Kernel Image (GKI) for all vendors, which is a first step in the direction of getting all vendors to contribute their code upstream. As such, attempt to improve the situation by enabling users to specify a symbol 'whitelist' at compile time. Any symbol specified in this whitelist will be kept exported when CONFIG_TRIM_UNUSED_KSYMS is set, even if it has no in-tree user. The whitelist is defined as a simple text file, listing symbols, one per line. Acked-by: Jessica Yu <jeyu@kernel.org> Acked-by: Nicolas Pitre <nico@fluxnic.net> Tested-by: Matthias Maennich <maennich@google.com> Reviewed-by: Matthias Maennich <maennich@google.com> Signed-off-by: Quentin Perret <qperret@google.com> Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.