Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Sun, 16 Jun 1996 22:03:27 -0400 | From | Paul Matthews <> | Subject | Re: Pruning the tree (was Re: your mail) |
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Marty Leisner writes: > > > I did a litte experiment: > untarred the tree > got rid of non-i386 architectures > retarred/recompressed > > Saved less then .5 meg...not worth it... > > marty
All,
Interesting. I found a different story. I took a disk utilization of the /usr/src/linux directory, first looking at the arch subdirectory:
21 ./i386/boot/compressed 8 ./i386/boot/tools 96 ./i386/boot 16 ./i386/mm 369 ./i386/math-emu 10 ./i386/lib 194 ./i386/kernel 696 ./i386 9 ./alpha/boot/tools 22 ./alpha/boot 25 ./alpha/lib 10 ./alpha/mm 204 ./alpha/kernel 48 ./alpha/math-emu 323 ./alpha 13 ./sparc/boot 369 ./sparc/kernel 81 ./sparc/lib 139 ./sparc/mm 40 ./sparc/prom 652 ./sparc 3 ./mips/boot 12 ./mips/mm 190 ./mips/kernel 5 ./mips/lib 224 ./mips 38 ./ppc/mm 54 ./ppc/kernel/include/elf 55 ./ppc/kernel/include 244 ./ppc/kernel 58 ./ppc/boot/compressed 69 ./ppc/boot 9 ./ppc/lib 370 ./ppc 263 ./m68k/amiga 195 ./m68k/atari 33 ./m68k/boot/amiga 34 ./m68k/boot/atari 69 ./m68k/boot 533 ./m68k/ifpsp060 208 ./m68k/kernel 15 ./m68k/lib 44 ./m68k/mm 502 ./m68k/fpsp040 314 ./m68k/console 3 ./m68k/tools/amiga 4 ./m68k/tools 2163 ./m68k 4430 .
After removing all non-i386 items, I had:
21 ./i386/boot/compressed 8 ./i386/boot/tools 96 ./i386/boot 16 ./i386/mm 369 ./i386/math-emu 10 ./i386/lib 194 ./i386/kernel 696 ./i386 699 .
In the /usr/src/linux/include directory I found the following:
28 ./linux/modules 1129 ./linux 4 ./asm-generic 197 ./asm-i386 265 ./asm-mips 201 ./asm-alpha 255 ./asm-m68k 344 ./asm-sparc 108 ./net 137 ./asm-ppc 11 ./scsi 2653 .
After removal of non-i386 items, I had:
28 ./linux/modules 1129 ./linux 4 ./asm-generic 197 ./asm-i386 108 ./net 11 ./scsi 1452 .
When I did a "make clean," and retarred the linux-2.0 directory, I had the following file:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4771581 Jun 16 17:10 /home/ftp/pub/linux/linux-2.0-i386.tar.gz
Compared to the original source:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5843677 Jun 9 11:48 /home/ftp/pub/linux/linux-2.0.tar.gz
There must be other architecture-specific files in the normal kernel distribution; e.g., in Documentation? This is only a rather surface attempt to size the benefits of a formal architecture-oriented development tree. (Incidentally, I was able to rebuild the kernel and am currently running it.)
I think a reduction of over 20% and close to 1.1 MB is a major difference and certainly worth "the trouble," especially when we think of the future. What happens when we add more ports. What about porting to IBM Mainframes!
It seems to me that what is at issue here boils down to the convenience of the kernel developers. If a Linux Guy wants to download the whole distribution, please do. Why should everyone have to?
I think that an argument to the effect that the kernel group needs to have all the different drivers, etc., makes sense. I just don't see why everyone else must.
I won't keep posting. I hope people will seriously consider the possibilities. I believe there must be a good solution. Look at the X11R6 Distributions.
Best regards,
Paul Matthews McLean, VA e-mail: paul@matthews.com
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