Joe Perches [off-list ref] writes:

On Fri, 2014-12-19 at 01:43 +0000, Måns Rullgård wrote:

quoted

What exactly are you proposing to remove?

Optionally compile out
kernel/printk/printk.c:early_printk()
even if CONFIG_EARLY_PRINTK is enabled.

quoted

I see no unused code related
to early printk (in any variant) under arch/mips.

I think there could be yet another CONFIG option
to specifically enable the early_printk function
for the arches that use it.

Why bother?  On MIPS it would save 132 bytes of compiled code.

The kernel/printk/early_printk() function seems
used only by arm/microblaze/tile/x86.

Rather than introduce more config complexity, you could try to remove
the 7 remaining uses of early_printk().

- arch/arm/mach-socfpga
  Single early_printk("Early printk initialized\n") call serving no
  apparent purpose can probably be safely deleted.  Since there are no
  other early_printk() calls, this information seems rather useless.

- arch/microblaze, arch/tile, arch/x86
  These all do a register_console() for the early console, so regular
  printk() should work.  Moreover, x86 allows multiple early consoles,
  but calling early_printk() will only output to the last one specified.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mans@mansr.com