CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP_MIN_COUNT: Number of loop devices to pre-create at init time
Static number of loop devices to be unconditionally pre-created at init time.
This default value can be overwritten on the kernel command line or with module-parameter loop.max_loop.
The historic default is 8. If a late 2011 version of losetup(8) is used, it can be set to 0, since needed loop devices can be dynamically allocated with the /dev/loop-control interface.
The in-kernel config (/proc/config.gz) is a useful way to understand how your existing kernel has been compiled, however it does use some memory to represent this information inside the kernel. However by making it optional you can still have this information if wanted, but as part of the system ramdisk (as a kernel module) rather than in memory all the time.
For AppleTV this was not (yet) enabled, for other platforms we make it modular.
While debugging a Zotac ID-80 not having any DMI information at all at your disposal is a drag. Making the DMI module afavilable at least allows me to see whether we need to flash the BIOS etc...
