Re: FatELF patches...

[Ryan C. Gordon]

> It's not the size of the kernel patch I'm worried about.  What worries
> me is the disk space needed when *all* my executables and libraries
> are suddenly 3, 4, or 5 times the size they need to be.

Then don't make FatELF files with 5 binaries in it. Or don't make FatELF 
files at all.

I glued two full Ubuntu installs together as a proof of concept, but I 
think if Ubuntu did this as a distribution-wide policy, then people would 
probably choose a different distribution.

Then again, I hope Ubuntu uses FatELF on a handful of binaries, and 
removes the /lib64 and /lib32 directories.

> There is also the issue of speed to launch these things.  It *has* to
> be slower than executing a native file directly.

In that there will be one extra read of 128 bytes, yes, but I'm not sure 
that's a measurable performance hit. For regular ELF files, the overhead 
is approximately one extra branch instruction. Considering that most files 
won't be FatELF, that seems like an acceptable cost.

> It's far too easy to use computers already.  That's the reason for the
> spam problem.

Clearly that's going to remain as a philosophical difference between us, 
so I won't waste your time trying to dissuade you.

--ryan.


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