- Introduction: Why go minimal? The Goal: Why 8.9MB? Explain the benefit of a small kernel for headless SBCs (faster boot, lower RAM usage, reduced attack surface).
The Hardware: Brief mention of the Radxa Zero 3 and its RK3566 SoC.
The Result: Mention that this configuration was officially acknowledged by Radxa engineers.
- Prerequisites & Environment Setup Toolchain: How to install the cross-compiler on Ubuntu/Debian.
Bash
sudo apt install gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu make libncurses-dev flex bison
Source Code: Link to the official Radxa/Rockchip kernel source.
- The Core Optimization Logic (The "How-To") This is the most important part. Break down your rk3566-minimal.config into logical steps:
Step 1: CPU & Architecture. Setting up CONFIG_ARM64_64K_PAGES and why it helps performance.
Step 2: Security First. Explaining why we keep PAC (Pointer Authentication) and BTI (Branch Target Identification) even in a minimal build.
Step 3: The "Cuts". What did we remove?
Disabling DRM (Graphics) for headless use.
Removing Sound/Multimedia subsystems.
Stripping unused HID and USB drivers.
Step 4: Compiler Optimization. Using CONFIG_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE=y.
- Step-by-Step Build Process Provide the exact commands you used:
make ARCH=arm64 rk3566-minimal_defconfig (or applying your custom config).
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- -j$(nproc)
Verifying the output size.
- Deployment: Flashing and Testing How to replace the kernel image on the SD card.
Using dmesg to verify that everything initialized correctly.
Pro Tip: Mention how to check memory usage immediately after boot.
- Conclusion & Future Work Summary of what was achieved.
Call to action: "Check out the full config on my GitHub" (Link to radxa-zero3-minimal-kernel).
Mention your next steps (maybe integrating this into a custom buildroot/yocto image).
You can find the config and build instructions here:
https://github.com/rdin777/radxa-zero3-minimal-kernel
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