Re: Floppy X
On 17 Apr 1996, Mark Eichin wrote:
> Then again, I get 2.2M for XF86_VGA16, but that's from
> xserver-3.1.2-3... still, strip+gzip gets it down to 960K, which
> might be enough (we're talking about installing from floppy, not
> running from floppy, anyway... running from two floppies is just as
> unlikely as running from 7 :-)
The Debian X servers are quite large because they have extensions like
XIE, PEX and so on compiled in. This doesn't matter on normal systems,
because file size isn't much of a consideration and the bits of the
server that don't get used don't get loaded. A small version could be
produced if necessary.
> Note that if we want small, and we've already got perl, we can drop
> xrdb, since I've got a minimal perl Xlib (raw perl, no libraries) that
> can do an xrdb directly. Then again, we can drop xrdb anyway --
> anything local can read ~/.Xresources, and if you've got remote
> clients, then you can install xrdb from the net too.
A perl Xlib? That's interesting. I wonder why it was written.
> However, this is just for a *minimal* installation. You'd really want
> to install a *real* X installation (from CDROM of course - you can get
> CDROM drives as low as $80 these days[2].)
Even cheaper, maybe - they have been available for as low as 30 pounds
occasionally in Britain. I think CD is the only really sensibly way to
distribute software, unless you have a decent (>64kbps, probably) net
connection.
Did I mention in my previous message the way I thought an X-based
installation would work? Install the base packages as normal, and boot
the new system. The new system will then install enough X packages to run
the graphical installation system (using XF86_VGA and a 640x480 VESA
mode, which should work on just about every system).
Steve Early
sde1000@cam.ac.uk
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