This question is more for @dimkr, but others with interest, please feel free to join.
Dima, you advocate for using the Debian kernel configuration to build the Puppy kernels, modified for Puppy's specific configuration (e.g. like aufs), because in your opinion Debian kernels are built with larger support of hardware out there. I think there is no argument about this. The only downside that you noted is that the kernel would be bigger.
I've just tried to build a new kernel this way: Linux 6.1.90 (patched with aufs), with bookworm configuration, and compare it with the kernel build of the same kernel sources using Fatdog configuration. The resulting debian-configured kernel is a bit bigger (9MB) vs Fatdog-configured kernel (8MB), but this is acceptable.
What surprises me, however, is the size of the kernel modules. The uncompressed kernel modules (the one you get then you run "make modules_install") is 4.6GB, compared to 265MB for the Fatdog-configured build.
I notice that the debian folks don't configure every kernel options. They only define the "important" config items, and for the rest, they leave it to the default as set by the kernel developers. This probably ends up enabling all sort of stuff, e.g. even compiling drivers for embedded devices which are only available for a certain SoC platforms; drivers which aren't relevant for x86 platform.
So my question is:
1. Are you seeing this too?
2. Do you consider it as a problem, or are you happy with that extra 4.6GB uncompressed modules?
In addition, you said that for your vanilla dpup, you used a tweaked version of the debian kernel config to build its kernel. With these tweaks:
3. Are you tweaking it to reduce the size, or are you doing it just to support the Puppy-like features in dpup?
4. I would like to see the dpup kernel config if it is available somewhere to compare notes.
Thanks.