diff --git a/arch/powerpc/config.mk b/arch/powerpc/config.mk
index 5bc849c5e43c8529d68ea8807f55919620ae0e18..2912604afcb1a388554736be5a3d4134153b496e 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/config.mk
+++ b/arch/powerpc/config.mk
@@ -25,9 +25,9 @@ CROSS_COMPILE ?= ppc_8xx-
 
 STANDALONE_LOAD_ADDR = 0x40000
 
-PLATFORM_RELFLAGS += -mrelocatable
+PLATFORM_RELFLAGS += -mrelocatable -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections
 PLATFORM_CPPFLAGS += -DCONFIG_PPC -D__powerpc__
-PLATFORM_LDFLAGS  += -n
+PLATFORM_LDFLAGS  += -n --gc-sections
 
 ifdef CONFIG_SYS_LDSCRIPT
 # need to strip off double quotes
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc85xx/config.mk b/arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc85xx/config.mk
index 3f3d096a3b25c81bd52d18fbcf0e3f2072d63b25..66d1741cc17aad1b38aa6b9ec06c4356eec695e1 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc85xx/config.mk
+++ b/arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc85xx/config.mk
@@ -25,10 +25,6 @@ PLATFORM_RELFLAGS += -fPIC -meabi
 
 PLATFORM_CPPFLAGS += -ffixed-r2 -Wa,-me500 -msoft-float -mno-string
 
-# Enable gc-sections to enable generation of smaller images.
-PLATFORM_LDFLAGS += --gc-sections
-PLATFORM_RELFLAGS += -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections
-
 # -mspe=yes is needed to have -mno-spe accepted by a buggy GCC;
 # see "[PATCH,rs6000] make -mno-spe work as expected" on
 # http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2008-04/msg00311.html