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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!entertainment-tonight.ai.mit.edu!ai-lab!usenet From: Joel Ray Holveck <joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: How to link /bin (and /sbin) dynamically? Date: 16 May 1997 15:17:23 -0400 Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab Lines: 37 Sender: joelh@ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu Message-ID: <sejsozn4470.fsf@ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu> References: <y7zyb9f26wi.fsf@hzsbc259.nl.lucent.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41057 Peter Mutsaers <plm@lucent.com> writes: > Everything in /bin and /sbin is linked statically. Isn't this a waste > of diskspace and also doesn't it slow down things a bit? > OK, I know it is more reliable, but OTOH if I have a boot floppy and > regular tape backups, I can always reinstall the system in case of a > filesystem damage or in case of a stupid error (like rm /usr/lib/libc*)... How are you supposed to restore from tape, without having the proper libraries? The point of /bin and /sbin is to be able to bootstrap the mounting of /usr, and to allow you to restore /usr in the event of a system crash. > Even Solaris and SunOS have /bin and the most part of /sbin linked > dynamically. Of course, if SunOS does it, it *must* be right. IIRC, Solaris symlinks /bin to /usr/bin, and has a /usr/bin that is mounted over when /usr is mounted. That means that under normal operation, it will appear that /bin has the /usr/bin dynamically linked files in it. > Are there executables (such as /bin/sh) that really *need* to be > statically linked? Depends on your needs, and what all you need to mount /usr and to recover your filesystem. Most of /bin and /sbin is there for a reason. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the Free Software Foundation's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped