Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!think.com!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Message-ID: <9911@star.cs.vu.nl> Date: 11 May 91 15:01:08 GMT References: <9864@star.cs.vu.nl> Sender: news@cs.vu.nl Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam Lines: 16 In article klamer@mi.eltn.utwente.nl (Klamer Schutte) writes: >How about shared libraries? This will cut back the size of all executables. Maybe yes, maybe no. I don't care about how big the programs are when they are in memory. What I care about is how big they are on the distribution disks. If I have to include the library in every a.out, but the system detects the existence of the shared library when the second program is executed and links to it, there is no gain. If programs do not include the library at all in their a.out's, and somehow magically find the library when they are executed, then I suspect this will require linking to the entire library, not just the routines that the individual program needs. Having the entire library in memory (even 1 copy) on a 512K original XT is likely to be a real hog. And then there is the complexity of the whole thing :-( Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)