Re: External install modules and compacted libc

[Glenn McGrath <bug1@optushome.com.au>]

Torsten Landschoff wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Sep 16, 2000 at 12:36:56PM +1100, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> > The way modules will work is that they should only be called (or loaded)
> > if needed, so its not a matter of disabling any modules, just only
> > calling the modules you need, this is the key to shrinking the installer
> > to 1 boot disk (with everything else being fetched as required). There
> 
> I see a problem with the libc here. You know we are using a compact libc
> for the current bootdisks with only so much in it as is needed by the
> stuff in the root filesystem. If other modules will be available later
> we might need more of libc. We either need to know the list of all
> modules which might get available or the external modules need to come
> with their own libc (which is certainly doable, only wanted to
> put draw some attention to this problem).
> 
> cu
> 
>         Torsten
> 
Yea, that is a problem that has been mentioned before, it is going to be
tricky to get around cheaply.

If a module has pre-dependencies it only needs to carry the parts of the
libraries it needs that wernt supplied by the pre-dependencent modules.
Could get trick to implement though.

And it becomes an issue that if a bigger heirarchy of pre-dependent
modules are used then the later modules will be leaner as there libs
will mostly be pre-provided, but this also makes the installer less
flexible.

We could have a libc module that provided the full library that could be
called on at some point, and everything prior to that point being either
static, or using a shared cutdown libc.

Glenn