Eric S. Raymond wrote:
>
> david parsons <orc@pell.portland.or.us>:
> > The whoops-time-to-fork-the-linux-kernel showstopper for me is that
> > the reference implementation of this new configuration language is
> > written in Python, and, given the fluidity of linux kernel
> > development and the impossibility of getting patches to Linus unless
> > you're a member of the Core Team, this would probably mean that the
> > Python implementation would be the only implementation that would
> > ever work.
>
> I hate to ruin a nice juicy flamewar by introducing such dull things as
> facts into it, but...
>
> On Red Hat, a Python 1.5.2 RPM installation looks as though it
> requires about 5M.
That's not important. Having to drop Yet Another Application in
to build the damned kernel is what's important.
> 1,976,362 CML1 tools (with generated tk files needed to run)
"with generated tk files needed to run"
So, you're stating that I need tk to run the existing configuration
tools? I really really hate to have to break this to you, but you
don't need tk to configure a Linux kernel, even if you do the
configuration from inside X Windows.
> Another thing we see is that anybody who'd take Perl over Python
> on size-economy grounds is smoking serious drugs and should be taken
> somewhere to calm down.
Perl has already oozed its way into the kernel, so we're stuck
with it already.
> It's interesting to notice exactly where CML1 is porking up. It
> turns out that the generated tk files make a lot of the difference --
> kconfig.tk alone is 1567874 bytes, over 1.5M.
kconfig.tk is generated, so it doesn't ship with the kernel
tarballs.
> Now let's consider the minimum build-environment size for a
> hypothetical pure-C implementation of CML2. Let's start with the
> parts we can total up:
>
> sizeof(CML2 rulebase) + sizeof(Tcl/Tk) + sizeof(Bison) + sizeof(Yacc)
>
> Why am I including Tcl/Tk?
Because you've been working with that hammer for so long that that
long sharp pointy thing with an engraved cross on the head must be
a nail?
I use menuconfig from inside X, because it works better than
xconfig. Mconfig is better (if I could only find it; I've too
much junk sitting on pell and downbelow these days) and it's fairly
small.
If Linus went insane and ripped everything except the tk/tcl tool
out of the kernel, that would also be a whoops moment. As it sits
right now, flattop.pell.portland.or.us, which I just installed with
CORE+BASIC+LIBC5+KERNEL (120(sigh) mb, no perl, no tcl/tk) is able
to compile a kernel. This is good.
____
david parsons \bi/ put python and perl in BASIC? I'd rather keep
\/ the religious icons in their own packages.
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