Greetings,
I want to trim down my Linux kernel to only support a tty and ethernet card, I don’t need any other features, has anyone done something similar of trimming down the linux kernel. I know that “make tinyconfig” exist but it’s not what I want.
can anyone suggest me something? or provide me some documentation to do it?
Thanks in advance!
So, just as a heads-up, building a truly minimal custom kernel is going to probably involve learning about what a bunch of kernel systems do. Like, this isn’t going to be a five minute task skimming a menu with twenty choices on the lines of “Ethernet”, “3D graphics”, etc.
I don’t know what you’re aiming to accomplish, but it may be that a regular kernel build already does what you want. Like, say you want to reduce memory usage. Most of the current-day Linux kernel on typical distros is built to be modular. That is, features are built into modules, and never actually loaded unless that functionality is called for. It’s not all that common for a typical user to need to build a custom kernel in 2025.
You can reduce build time, but that’s not usually a huge issue for most people if they’re using prebuilt kernels.
You can maybe shave down disk space, but the kernel isn’t usually the first candidate that I’d go after for that.
If you’re doing this as a learning experience, then knock yourself out. Just want to moderate expectations, if you’re going into this thinking that this is a common task and is going to involve a minimal amount of learning and effort. You’re probably going to discover that your kernel requires a lot more than you’re listing here to usefully function.