On Thu, 30 Nov 2006 13:01:26 +0100 Volker Grabsch <vog@notjusthosting.com> wrote: > On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 07:55:08AM +0000, Neil Williams wrote: > > How much space will optimising binaries for size really provide? How > > does that compare with the simplicity of having the same > > arch-specific binaries (with the same md5sum) in Emdebian and > > Debian? > [...] > > OK, I know, I've missed something here, there must be a problem in > > this idea - I just can't see it yet. It can't be this simple - can > > it? > > I'm not sure whether it's that simple, but I think you forgot the > binary dependencies. True. GUI packages spring to mind. > Recompiling a package also means to have the freedom not to link > against unneeded libraries. I'm not sure if this is really done in > Emdebian, at least it's something *I* would do. It is certainly something that can be done - I was just wondering aloud if it is mandatory. I suspect there will be some (non-GUI) packages where the benefits of rebuilding are no greater than the benefits from stripping out the docs and handling the locales. > Of course this is also just a "size" argument, but one of Emdebians > goals is keep the list of packages really small, isn't it? I didn't think so - to keep the list of packages that need to be *installed* on a particular device small, yes. To restrict the total number of packages available once emdebian is installed? I'd say no. Handling locales so that a specific user only needs to install the translations that apply to that one machine instead of all or nothing means that the total number of packages in emdebian would soon outstrip the number in Debian as a whole, if only because popular packages may have more than 70 translations - leading to 70 very small packages (one translation file each) and one smaller core package. However, the user only needs to install the core plus one or maybe two translations. The total repository size will be smaller despite the extra packages because of the removal of the docs. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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