When kdump is way too much
summary
Kdump needs ~200 MB prereserved RAM and can fail during panic boot, so pstore is used on Steam Deck as a lightweight alternative that avoids rebooting a panic kernel. A small pstore RAM backend (~1–2 MB) stores printk, task states and full CPU backtraces; tooling named kst tool defaults to pstore on Arch, using a 4 MB printk buffer and works in field tests. Limits: not a full vmcore, notifier ordering risks, and a need for easier memory reservation and optional BPF-pluggable panic prints for targeted data.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 1:06Console hardware and context
- 3:14Purpose of log collection
- 5:03Kdump limitations and issues
- 8:18Pstore as lightweight alternative
- 10:46Pstore advantages and trade-offs
- 12:58Enhancing data with printk
- 13:40Panic notifiers and risks
- 15:07Challenges and improvements for pstore
- 17:17Q&A session
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