[ELDK] Creating small target rootfs in DENX

Dave Rensberger David.Rensberger at ambientcorp.com
Wed May 28 18:07:47 CEST 2008


OK that makes sense.

Coming from a "build everything yourself" type of embedded environment,
I still just feel uncomfortable with using all of these pre-built
binaries. When I think about it, though, I can't really think of much
reason why this would really be a problem.   If I actually needed to
change anything in busybox, glibc, etc., there's no reason that I
couldn't just replace the default SELF binary with my custom one, huh?

--Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: wd at denx.de [mailto:wd at denx.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 11:47 AM
To: pterry at vmetro.com
Cc: Dave Rensberger; eldk at lists.denx.de
Subject: Re: [ELDK] Creating small target rootfs in DENX

In message <1211988251.22150.7.camel at pterry-fc6.micromemory.com> you
wrote:
>
> It depends on your mindset. Most "embedded, no resources spare" people
> would start with SELF which gives you a boot up and busybox plus ftp
and
> telnet. You throw in your application programs, daemons, utilities
plus
> any shared libraries they use (if not static). Then maybe you peruse
the

ACK, that's the best  way  to  go.  To  get  a  well-designed,  small
embedded root file system you should know exactly why you need to add
a specific file to the target root file system.

> Starting the other end and trying to see how much you can remove
without
> something thats left breaking is somewhat more frustrating, dependency
> tracking through shared libraries etc. And most RPM packages are not
> that good at declaring dependencies that really matter... admin
scripts
> for a package being dependent on little utilities from other packages,
> etc.

Trying to shrink a full-blown istribution results typically in 10...20
times the size of a file system build bottom up.

Quote:

Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything  to  add,
but when there is no longer anything to take away.


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
"Obviously, a major malfunction has occurred."
              -- Steve Nesbitt, voice of Mission Control, January 28,
                 1986, as the shuttle Challenger exploded within view
                 of the grandstands.


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