Current master smaller than v18.06.2 with same configuration(?)

For Developers
1

I just tried to build master and v18.06.2 for Asus RT-N56U using default install and LuCi without HTTPS. I noticed that the SquashFS block size has been increased to 1 MB in master so I reduced it to 256 KB for easier comparison. With this setting the firmware ended up at 3 736 257 B in master and 3 801 260 B in 18.06.2, a reduction of 65 003 B.

Anyone know if this is representative for what v19 will be, or if for instance something that was installed by default in the release version has been removed? If it is representative then the developers have done a surprisingly good job in this regard and there is in my view currently no need to do anything special for 4MB owners.

Note that the actual firmware file size increases in chunks so the change could probably mean a real reduction of anywhere between 1 and 130 000 B.

2

Sounds strange, but seems like theres going to be a logician explanation somewhere. Can you post your make config that you used so others can try/compare results?

3

I looked closer and it turns out these options have been changed in master for my firmware:
CONFIG_KERNEL_SWAP
CONFIG_KERNEL_KALLSYMS
CONFIG_KERNEL_DEBUG_KERNEL
CONFIG_KERNEL_DEBUG_INFO
CONFIG_KERNEL_COREDUMP
CONFIG_KERNEL_ELF_CORE
CONFIG_KERNEL_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE

With those reset the size is 3 998 401 bytes, 197 141 more than 18.06.2. I guess the 4/32 users are pretty much screwed.