On Wed, 16 Aug 2000 14:14:24 Ben Armstrong wrote:
> For the most part, I think there is enough flexibility within Debian to
> pick and choose the smallest tools that will do the job from among the
> binary packages. Where Debian currently falls short, we can create -tiny
> versions of packages as needed. Most useful optimizations that can be
> done at compile time can also be used to create binary packages to save
> people the time and bother of compiling it themselves.
Yes; I have an idea for a solution to the problem:
* For each package, logically create another two packages (although there
could be many categories): `-small' and `-tiny'.
* Write a script that will take a binary package and, based on guesses,
squeeze it down to size; e.g. squeezing binaries, removing documentation,
removing bash or Perl scripts (depending on whether the target supports
bash and perl), header files, etc.
* Define a mechanism so that a binary package can contain a file in
`DEBIAN/', called (say) `squeeze-small' and `squeeze-tiny', overriding
the script's guesses, and specifying more exactly how to squeeze the
package to its corresponding smaller version.
* Define a mechanism so that a source package can contain a file which
specifies a list of `small' options (e.g. portions of glibc to compile
in) which can be defined to create a squeezed package in one form.
(I think few packages would need these.)
* Write a tool analagous to the task selector to build these `small'
packages and create filesystem images out of them.
* Package up newlib and friends and make them provide libc6. :-)
c.
