The only cost is disk space... e.g. 3MB stripped kernel verses 16MB
debug kernel. But the debug info isn't actually loaded into memory so
the kernel load time and memory overhead is the same as with the stripped
version.
The issue is bug reports and kernel core dumps. I can't count the number
of times I have had to carefully instruct people to retrieve their
kernel.debug's for bug reporting purposes. And even my own debugging
would be more convenient if I didn't have to save off a separate copy of
the debug version of the kernel.
What I'm thinking of doing is having the installkernel target install the
debug version rather then the stripped version unless told to install
the stripped version with a new option, e.g. 'options INSTALL_STRIPPED'.
We would ship full debug GENERIC kernels instead of stripped kernels.
i.e. we aren't getting rid of the ability to install a stripped kernel,
we just aren't making it the default any more.
What do people think?
-Matt