Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!cs.titech!titccy.cc.titech!necom830!mohta From: mohta@necom830.cc.titech.ac.jp (Masataka Ohta) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: Shared Libraries YO!!! Message-ID: <349@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp> Date: 26 Jun 91 14:40:12 GMT References: <1991Jun10.154811.11965@infonode.ingr.com> <18370004@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> Sender: news@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp Organization: Tokyo Institute of Technology Lines: 148 In article <18370004@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> mjs@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes: >>>> So, it should be concluded that there is no usable software upgrade >>>> flexibility in shared libraries. >>I don't deny shared libraries are sometimes (but not always) useful for >>minor bug fix. >Argue syntax all you want. I'd prefer to call it a "performance enhancement" >rather than a bug fix OK. Anyway, it is not software upgrade such ans /etc/hosts to DNS. With shared libraries, you can do "minor improvement of libraly" (including minor bug fix and performance enchancement) with relatively small amount of distributed storage. But, amount of distributed storage dose not matter so much. Announcement, provision, installation and customer support cost much more than media especially with CDROMs. >Anyhow, the point is, shared libraries may make >distribution easier. Bug fixes and performance enhancements happen at *every* >release; major new pieces of functionality are relatively rare. You tell me >which is more important to handle transparently. I can't understand why you mention transparency here. You can do bug fixes and performance enhancements at *every* release without losing transparency. >>I personally have a workstation, on which, X11R4 is fully installed as ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>supplied by the vendor. Still, /usr/bin/X11 consumes only 20MB. My home ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>directly consumes 200MB, most of which is data (but not disk consuming >>picture data). So, order of magnitude size saving on 20MB dose not matter >>at all. >Wait a minute here. Are you saying /usr/bin/X11 consumes only 20MB with things >built with archive libraries? Sounds like you've just gone through it and >deleted everything just to make your point. No. I have four vendor standard installation options: 1) not install X11 at all 2) install core of X11 3) install a little more of X11 4) fully install X11 I choose 4, partly because someone else might want to use X11 and partly becuase I have enough disk. The measurement is done with SONY's NEWS-OS 4.0C. SONY is a rather active member of X consorcium and will, I think, provide standard tools of X11. % du /usr/bin/X11 20742 /usr/bin/X11 % ls -l /usr/bin/X11 X muncher startx xev xmj Xnews mwm tterm xeyes xmkmf appres oclock twm xfd xmodmap atobm plaid uil xfontsel xmon2cfg bdftosnf puzzle viewres xgc xpr bitmap resize xauth xgraph xprev bmtoa ripxrtmetric xbiff xhost xprop editres sessreg xcalc xinit xrdb hterm showrgb xcdp xkill xrefresh ico showsnf xclipboard xload xsed imake sjx xclock xlogo xset jterm sjxdemo xcutsel xlsatoms xsetroot listres snmpxbar xditview xlsclients xstdcmap makedepend snmpxconn xdm xlsfonts xterm maze snmpxmon2 xdmshell xlswins xvmap mkdirhier snmpxperf xdpr xmag xwd mkfontdir snmpxperfmon xdpyinfo xman xwininfo mterm snmpxrtmetric xedit xmh xwud >My server's /usr/bin/X11 is close >to 10 MB even with shared libraries. Perhaps because shared libraries dose not save so much disk space, or perhaps because your /usr/bin/X11 is deseparetely bloated with totally unnecessary tools. Anyway, my /usr/bin/X11 is sufficient for you as it even has xclock. >>What I showed is demerit of shared libraries in some cases, not lack of >>benefit. On the other hand, no one showed shared libraries have benefit on >>memory savings. >Right, but again, just because no one took the trouble to do so doesn't mean >there is never a benefit. The problem is not that no one post the measurement result but that no one seemed to have measured the actual merit of shared libraries on memory saving. Have you measure it, or are you just thinking someone should have measured it, or are you merely using your common sense (to be scientific, you shouldn't rely on your common sense)? >No one denies shared libraries are unnecessary if you live your life around >saving memory and disk space in all other ways. I am saving memory and disk space, of course. >There is a similar flame war in rec.bicycles over whether >or not people should need cars. The analagous statement being made there is, >just make sure you live within a few miles of where you work, move every time >your work location changes, don't engage in any social behavior that might >require you to get from point A to B at speeds over 30 MPH, or have to cover >distances of more than 100 miles in a day, and you'll never need a car. Bicycles? No. I am not saying you should use slow workstations. We should use the state of the art hardware in a reasonable way. Haven't you played SimCity? Using shared libraries for X is like building highways for cars. You can't solve traffic jam problem that way. So use railways. With the same technology level, railways have much more transportation capability. The reality of life in Tokyo (and urban area in Japan) is that you had better use railways (especially metros) than cars. Railways are much faster transport than cars in Tokyo. I have had simlar experience also in Boston, though Boston is much smaller city than Tokyo. The distance between home and office is longer than 50 miles for large amount of people. For longer distance, Tokyo and Osaka is connected by super express Hikari with 250Km/h (while maximum legal speed on freeway by car in Japan is only 100Km/h), in 3 hours, which is often even faster than air plains as transport between point A and B because airports are often located at inconvenient locations (if you play SimCity you can understand why airports should be located far from the center of the city). It should be noted that cars and X promote to waste resources. >For most people, however, that's simply not practical. Just because a major (in case of SimCity and most cities in USA) or a vendor (in case of window systems) dose not recognize what is good for thier citizens or customers (some short-sighted vendors might think that shared libraries are profittable for them becuase it accelerate waste of resources). Masataka Ohta