Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!tank!rtp1
From: rtp1@tank.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Why is Domain OS so big?
Keywords: diskspace, Domain, huge
Message-ID: <6627@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 8 Dec 89 02:41:22 GMT
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 44

I bought my DN10000 with the 300megabyte drive, figuring that this would
do me for a long time, until I managed to set up some optical secondary
storage, or until the price of big, fast disks came down.  Allright, so
I am used to my various Macintosh setups, where I have labored for years
without filling up my 80 meg of disk storage.  Thought if I ever got
300 meg, I'da died an gone to heaven.
    Well, nobody expects Unix to be as compact as the Mac os, which
after all doesn't do as much as Unix (though in some ways it does a lot
more.  Wish I had that 256K toolbox in rom on the 10000!).  But Domain
OS is a real disk hog.  I installed BSD_medium, and found that the
OS files take up an amount pushing 150 megabytes (even after deleting
the games directory)--and yes, I did install using hard links.  With the
"medium" installation you don't even really get all the Unix you need, 
e.g. you don't get support for Unix "plot" under DM.  And now I find that
with 10.2, in order to get the X developer tools, I will need to do
a "large" installation. This means I will really need to spring mucho
$$$ to get an expensive Apollo 700MB disk to stay in business.
    Now, I don't want to get into the tired "apollo vs. sun" thing.  I've
had enough with the interminable and unproductive "mac vs ibm" thing (but
alright, since you asked, since you twisted my arm, yes the mac is better
than ibm and apollo is generally better than Sun, except that the 
sparcstation is a great little machine at a great price and I wish
Apollo had a PrismStation, but no let's not start a thread on this,
it was just because I heard you insisting to know ...:)).  But the 
fact is people have Sun 3/50's with 70MB scsi disks running SunOS
as stand-alone systems (i.e. no links to file servers anywhere), and
still have room left over for their data files.
    I think it is probably easier for me to get more disk space than
to hack around with custom installations (I am the prime user and 
sysadmin all in one of this 10000, and tend to think of it as a kind
of expensive personal computer). For me, I like minst just fine.  
But is there some intrinsic reason why the OS on the DN10000 has to
be so big?  What am I getting for all that space?  It is a real nuisance,
because not only do you need more disk space, but you have to spend
time backing it all up.  Does anybody have any bright ideas as to
what I could delete to free up significant amounts of space?  What
is all that stuff in the sau10 directory for?  Is all of it really ]
needed?  
    What is really needed is a minst script tailored for an installation
such as mine, which is strictly a single-node operation.  Something that
gives you what you need without all the fluff.  Failing that, Apollo
ought to offer a cheaper line of 700MB drives.  I'd much rather be
spending $13000 for a second processor than for another disk drive.