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Re: /bin/perl



'Carl V Streeter wrote:'
>
>brian writes:
>> 
>> I think having /bin/perl is a good idea.  Suppose somebody wants to
>> write a perl scrip for rc.boot or something.  If perl is a required
>> script processor for the Debian system (and I'm glad it is), then I
>> think it should be available at all times.

/etc/init.d/boot mounts all the filesystems.  So /usr/bin/* are
available once /etc/init.d/boot is finished and guess which script is
run first at bootup?  /etc/init.d/boot, of course.  I still see no need
for perl in /bin.

>I guess between this and Richard K's point of having a general purpose
>scripting tool available for recovering a messed up system, it's worth
>another 200k on the boot partition.  Especially if I ever needed it ;)

I disagree.  I mean some like awk, others python.  So where would the
bloat in /bin end if everyone got to have their favorite tools in
/bin?  I think FSSTND says only /required/ tools belong in /bin.
Moreover, we already have a general purpose scripting tool available,
/bin/bash.

Furthermore, perl needs /usr/lib anyway:
$ ldd /usr/bin/perl
        libgdbm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libgdbm.so.1.7.3
        libdb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libdb.so.1.85.2
        libdl.so.1 => /lib/libdl.so.1.7.14
        libm.so.5 => /lib/libm.so.5.0.5
        libc.so.5 => /lib/libc.so.5.2.18
So it will be more than 200k that needs to move around
$ ls -l /usr/lib/libgdbm.so.1.7.3 /usr/lib/libdb.so.1.85.2 /usr/bin/perl
-rwxr-xr-x   2 root     root       465952 Feb  6 20:31 /usr/bin/perl
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        65153 Dec 20 10:31 /usr/lib/libdb.so.1.85.2
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root        24716 Dec 20 10:23 /usr/lib/libgdbm.so.1.7.3
So it's >500k to meet this proposal.

If you want perl on a rescue floppy, fine.  But, please keep it out of
/bin.

-- 
Christopher J. Fearnley            |    UNIX SIG Leader at PACS
cjf@netaxs.com                     |    (Philadelphia Area Computer Society)
http://www.netaxs.com/~cjf         |    Design Science Revolutionary
ftp://ftp.netaxs.com/people/cjf    |    Explorer in Universe
"Dare to be Naive" -- Bucky Fuller |    Linux Advocate


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