On Mon, Aug 23, 1999 at 10:51:07PM -0500, Steve Greenland wrote: > The only benefit you've shown for static binaries is for use on remotely > administered systems, where the admin has neither physical access nor > the someone on site to follow simple instructions like "put the CD > labeled 'Emergency use only' in the tray and hit Ctrl-Alt-Del.", and for Regardless of Justin's ranting, this simply isn't true. Keeping a complete copy of / on a seperate partition gives you online recovery at a moderate cost (30-40 megs) and does not require rebooting in order to replace files on the live root. This also buys you the ability to boot from an alternate partition in the event that the main root partition is completely destroyed, which is something that cannot be done with static binaries. Debian does have the ability to maintain a high-availability system, and it does that in the same way that larger systems do (redundency). Debian chose to eliminate the medium-availibility option (static bins) because it duplicates functionality and causes problems for certain classes of machines that we wish to run on. One argument for static bins that I keep seeing is that "other unixen do it." That's a misleading half-truth. Yes, most provide a static /bin/sh. I don't know offhand of one that provides a static su or a static ifconfig or any of the other things that have been floated as essential to recovery. (Counting only those systems that support dynamic libs.) The reality is that the commercial unices are centered around preserving the ability for root to log in at the console--not the ability for root to come in over a network. Debian configured with sash on a serial console provides _as much or more_ reliability as a commercial unix configured with a static /bin/sh, and does it _in less space_. Which leaves only the "but I was expecting static libs" argument, one that does not overly impress me. When switching between flavors of unix, you need to learn to find the differences. Should debian also dump startup programs into /etc because "other unixes do it"? Should we stop shipping a compiler because "that's what other unixes do"? Of course not: we're trying to build a new, reliable, streamlined, free operating system--not a mindless clone of someone else's OS. Mike Stone
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