Help with trimming modules.gz to minimum size?

[flyingfishfinger]

Hi,
I'm looking for a bit of assistance with trimming modules.gz. I've read the remastering guide and I should just be able to remove stuff I don't need and repack it, correct?

To that end, the "drivers/net" folder is the largest and under "ethernet" alone I find 3.5MB of stuff. I've got a Realtek chipset, so would I be correct in saying I can delete every folder in that directory except the Realtek one, to start with?

Is there a good method to take this further, like looking at what things DO get loaded when I boot Core on my machine and then delete everything that doesn't?

Cheers,
R

[Rich]

Hi flyingfishfinger

Hi,
I'm looking for a bit of assistance with trimming modules.gz. I've read the remastering guide and I should just be able to remove stuff I don't need and repack it, correct? ...

Yes.

To that end, the "drivers/net" folder is the largest and under "ethernet" alone I find 3.5MB of stuff. I've got a Realtek chipset, so would I be correct in saying I can delete every folder in that directory except the Realtek one, to start with?

Modules can have dependencies, and they might be in other folders.

Is there a good method to take this further, like looking at what things DO get loaded when I boot Core on my machine and then delete everything that doesn't?

I suppose you could use the output of:

Code: [Select]

lsmodto decide which modules to keep. First make sure you've run all your installed programs in case any of them rely on any of the
modules included in the base. Here's a brief summary on unpacking/repacking the  modules.gz  file:

Code: [Select]

# Unpack  modules.gz  which is in the current directory
tc@E310:~$ mkdir -p tmp/extract
tc@E310:~$ cd tmp/extract/
tc@E310:~/tmp/extract$ zcat ../../modules64.gz | cpio -i -H newc -d
43955 blocks
# Make your changes, then repack modules.gz
tc@E310:~/tmp/extract$ depmod -a -b . 4.19.10-tinycore64
depmod: ./kernel.tclocal: No such file or directory
tc@E310:~/tmp/extract$ find lib usr | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9 > ../modules64.gz
# The new  modules.gz  is in  tc@E310:~/tmp/Replace  4.19.10-tinycore64  with the version you are running.