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Diffstat (limited to 'mdk-stage1/doc/WHY-DIETLIBC')
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diff --git a/mdk-stage1/doc/WHY-DIETLIBC b/mdk-stage1/doc/WHY-DIETLIBC new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e7c526b49 --- /dev/null +++ b/mdk-stage1/doc/WHY-DIETLIBC @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +(the dietlibc is a replacement for the glibc, which aim is to produce +smaller statically linked binaries) + + +The use for dietlibc in the stage1 was clear because currently used +install process on x86 is from a 1.44 Mbytes floppy. On this floppy we +need to fit the kernel, modules (scsi and network access), and the code to +do the basic things to load the stage2. The only part on which we could +progress was the code. + +As always, figures demonstrate evidences. Here are the size of the +binaries used for the cdrom, disk, network and full floppy installs, using +newt as the UI library: + + - with glibc + +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 569448 May 15 15:29 stage1-cdrom +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 572264 May 15 15:29 stage1-disk +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 624712 May 15 15:30 stage1-network +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 720360 May 15 15:29 stage1-full + + - with dietlibc + +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 169332 May 15 14:26 stage1-cdrom +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 172180 May 15 14:26 stage1-disk +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 198612 May 15 14:26 stage1-network +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 251764 May 15 14:26 stage1-full + + +The `stage1-full' binary has code for many things, most notably: data +decrunching (bzlib), archive extraction (in-house format), module loading +(insmod from busybox), PCI detection, ide and scsi handling, +cdrom/disk/loopback mounting, DHCP client negociation (redhat+grub), NFS +mounting (util-linux), FTP and HTTP transmission (redhat), pcmcia +initializing (pcmcia-cs), UI interaction (slang/newt); with use of the +dietlibc, the binary is only 250 kbytes! + + +Due to the modular coding, it is also possible to choose to not use +slang/newt as the UI, but a stdio-only UI. In that case, the binaries get +even smaller: + +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 104500 May 15 15:46 stage1-cdrom* +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 107348 May 15 15:46 stage1-disk* +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 133972 May 15 15:47 stage1-network* +-rwxr-xr-x 1 gc gc 187348 May 15 15:46 stage1-full* + + + +gc [Tue May 15 15:58:34 2001]
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