Re: Library reduction on Alpha (was: Re: Alpha: aboot rescue disk)

[Daniel Jacobowitz <dan@debian.org>]

On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 06:01:27PM +0200, Goswin Brederlow wrote:
> > the scripts first (I'll check them out of CVS probably tomorrow) to make
> > sure they don't already try that :-)
> > 
> > > mklibs.py on the other hand includes each symbol only once. Theres a
> > > small hack to prefer libc symbols (althout not realy needed since libm
> > > seems to be after libc) but otherwise its a first come first use basis.
> > 
> > Ok...this script probably does what I'm thinking about then.  Is this one
> > working well enough or do you want to shrink it even more?
> 
> If we can, sure. But the only thing that I see left si to remove
> versioned symbols and leave only the right version or the minimal set
> of version required. But does that realy help? Its probably just some
> stubs that get removed by that.

Actually, I'd bet it saves more than you think.  However, like I've
said, we don't need a profusion of library reducers.  We should have at
least one packaged independently of the boot floppies.  I'm going to
try to dig up and package MontaVista's (also written in python).  It's
quite complete (and strips out unneeded versions, IIRC).

> Currently the root.bin fits, so unless someone adds more the jobs
> done, but that just a lazy programmers attitude. :)

I'm sure we can find things to add.  We're an industrious bunch that
way :)

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz                           Carnegie Mellon University
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer