Bug#267594: libc6 depends on bash
At Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:38:21 -0400,
Jeff Bailey wrote:
> > BTW, even we use /bin/bash, do we have reason to use /bin/sh? If so,
> > why? bash is included in the base system. We use various tools for
> > postinst/preinst, because those tools are also in the bootstrapping
> > base system.
>
> While policy currently has bash in the base system, it might not always.
Yes, that's one of good reasons. However should we need to assume "it
might not always" just now?
> David is involved with alot of embedded work and so far most people have
> cheerfully taken his patch. Being able to go from bash to dash in an
> embedded system would save 566.6k. In most cases moving from requiring
> bash to requiring a pure posix shell is just a matter of a couple
> cosmetic changes.
So who do use debian packaging system on the embedded system?
libc6 has a lot of incidental parts; /lib/tls, zoneinfo and documents.
It's large package. If the space efficiency is the primary focus,
remove them first. This means that it's hard to use debian packaging
system on their small storage directly.
Moreover, if you use debian packaging system, and your storage is very
limited (especially small flash devices for embededd machine), you
need to be careful of the installed size because we cannot estimate
the actual storage consumption. It may be overflowed.
So I think the keyword "embededd" misleads this discussion.
Yes, it's good idea to use only posix shell. I agree with it.
However, I think "don't use bash-ism" does not always become the
reason. "Some people cannot see the wood for the trees."
BTW, if you want to save space on your small gadget, busybox is great
one. busybox provides not only shell but also other tools like ls,
mkswap, and so on.
Regards,
-- gotom
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