Messages in this thread | | | From | (david parsons) | Subject | Re: High UID support for Linux | Date | 1 Dec 1998 18:04:45 -0800 |
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In article <linux.kernel.75jaSn$Hw-B@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen <kaih@khms.westfalen.de> wrote: >smurf@noris.de (Matthias Urlichs) wrote on 27.11.98 in <73ln72$gjc$1@work2.noris.de>: > >> o.r.c@p.e.l.l.p.o.r.t.l.a.n.d.o.r.u.s (david parsons) writes: >> > >> > Get back to me when an a.out glibc that can fit on an install >> > floppy is written [2]. >> > >> Just use a compressed RAM disk... >> >> > [2: libc 4.8.0 is 412 blocks long; if glibc is clocking in at >> > that size range, please let me know.] >> >> What's your block size?? >> >> glibc 2.1 currently is 934 kBytes. That obviously includes a whole lot of >> cruft no sane install disk is ever going to need, but since the tools exist >> for using it regardless, nobody made the effort to strip it down. Yet. > >Have a look at the Debian install disk (a.k.a. "rescue disk"). It's >created by the boot-floppies package (ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/ >main/source/admin/boot-floppies*, I believe). > >I think it mainly uses two tricks - one, a swiss-army-knife type of >program that has the *basic* functionality of all the common utilities >linked in one binary, and two, some script to strip down libc to those >routines actually needed.
Well, in the future I'll probably end up doing the installer as a statically linked object; it almost every case, the very first thing the installer does is set up a working area on the install media, and I can put libc's and suchlike there. Given the option between that and a stripped down libc for install disks (I still have bad dreams about libc-lite), static linking becomes A Good Thing.
The install floppy really only contains a kernel, libc, and loadandgo; the rest of the scaffolding on the install floppy is for a device directory (with 2.2, I can kiss *that* Unix kludge goodbye and use devfs like G-d Himself Intended), various lilo debris (if devfs works properly, I can discard lilo in favor of SYSLINUX and use a MS-DOS format filesystem to boot from), and the terminfo scaffolding for the ncurses that's statically linked into loadandgo.
If I was ambitious, I could even write a little Windows program that let me configure specific boot disks, but that's getting Wayyyyyy off-topic for the Linux kernel mailing list.
____ david parsons \bi/ A linux kernel that only supports MS-DOS and ISO9660 \/ filesystems? Oh, you betcha!
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