Re: Pruning the tree

Mark Hahn (hahn@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu)
Mon, 17 Jun 1996 00:06:48 -0400


> I think a reduction of over 20% and close to 1.1 MB is a major
> difference and certainly worth "the trouble," especially when we think
> of the future. What happens when we add more ports. What about porting
> to IBM Mainframes!

1.1 MB is peanuts! we're talking a measly 5 minutes of download,
and that's only if you lack the wits to use patches!

> It seems to me that what is at issue here boils down to the
> convenience of the kernel developers. If a Linux Guy wants to download
> the whole distribution, please do. Why should everyone have to?

on the contrary: if you can't afford the 5 minutes to download
or 17 cents to store on disk, then arrange for some secondary,
pruned distribution. AND USE PATCHES! wasting a millisecond
of Linus's time for petty convenience is ludicrous!

WAIT! before you reply, think about it! try to write a script
to generate new pruned distributions. write one that tries to
_really_ save space by pruning out drivers, since those are the
large components. come up with a solution for maintaining
the integrity of versions that are pieced together, since this
will surely happen. finally, ensure that this will not cause
a flood of wailing newbies on linux-kernel, which, btw, has over
1900 recipients.

> possibilities. I believe there must be a good solution. Look at the
> X11R6 Distributions.

uh, yeah, months between distributions, often binary,
and they expire in an unsubtle manner. don't go there.

besides, have you actually ever gotten a source distribution
and compiled it? isn't imake fun? note also that the kernel
has n! potential versions, for n ~= 100, whereas X has about
a dozen basic categories of cards, and people usually ignore
the options that would produce perhaps 20! configurations.

regards, mark hahn.

-- 
operator may differ from spokesperson.  hahn@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu
                                        http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/~hahn/