Re: High UID support for Linux

david parsons (o.r.c@p.e.l.l.p.o.r.t.l.a.n.d.o.r.u.s)
1 Dec 1998 18:04:45 -0800


In article <linux.kernel.75jaSn$Hw-B@khms.westfalen.de>,
Kai Henningsen <kaih@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>smurf@noris.de (Matthias Urlichs) wrote on 27.11.98 in <73ln72$gjc$1@work2.noris.de>:
>
>> o.r.c@p.e.l.l.p.o.r.t.l.a.n.d.o.r.u.s (david parsons) writes:
>> >
>> > Get back to me when an a.out glibc that can fit on an install
>> > floppy is written [2].
>> >
>> Just use a compressed RAM disk...
>>
>> > [2: libc 4.8.0 is 412 blocks long; if glibc is clocking in at
>> > that size range, please let me know.]
>>
>> What's your block size??
>>
>> glibc 2.1 currently is 934 kBytes. That obviously includes a whole lot of
>> cruft no sane install disk is ever going to need, but since the tools exist
>> for using it regardless, nobody made the effort to strip it down. Yet.
>
>Have a look at the Debian install disk (a.k.a. "rescue disk"). It's
>created by the boot-floppies package (ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/
>main/source/admin/boot-floppies*, I believe).
>
>I think it mainly uses two tricks - one, a swiss-army-knife type of
>program that has the *basic* functionality of all the common utilities
>linked in one binary, and two, some script to strip down libc to those
>routines actually needed.

Well, in the future I'll probably end up doing the installer as a
statically linked object; it almost every case, the very first
thing the installer does is set up a working area on the install
media, and I can put libc's and suchlike there. Given the option
between that and a stripped down libc for install disks (I still
have bad dreams about libc-lite), static linking becomes A Good
Thing.

The install floppy really only contains a kernel, libc, and
loadandgo; the rest of the scaffolding on the install floppy is for
a device directory (with 2.2, I can kiss *that* Unix kludge goodbye
and use devfs like G-d Himself Intended), various lilo debris (if
devfs works properly, I can discard lilo in favor of SYSLINUX and
use a MS-DOS format filesystem to boot from), and the terminfo
scaffolding for the ncurses that's statically linked into loadandgo.

If I was ambitious, I could even write a little Windows program that
let me configure specific boot disks, but that's getting Wayyyyyy
off-topic for the Linux kernel mailing list.

____
david parsons \bi/ A linux kernel that only supports MS-DOS and ISO9660
\/ filesystems? Oh, you betcha!

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