[PATCH] Applet installation
Yann E. MORIN
yann.morin.1998 at anciens.enib.fr
Fri Oct 7 16:27:06 UTC 2005
Hi all!
Rob,
Quoting Rob Landley <rob at landley.net>:
> B) If you're going to switch to install --hardlinks, shouldn't we just yank
> "make install-hardlinks" and update "make help" to mention the new install
> options? (Since this is a 1.1-only feature, I doubt it would have much
> impact on people. But then I don't even know if anybody currently uses the
> hardlinks option at all. Not sure what the advantage is. It'd be nice if
> you could have different permissions on different hardlinks, so only certain
> applets would have the suid bit in the first place, but alas...)
Thanks for comments!
Hardlinks vs softlinks:
- inode usage : hardlinks win
Softlinks use one inode each, whereas hardlinks use none. Both use one
directory entry each. So on a embeded filesystem with really limited
space, reducing the inode number saves some space that can be used for
something else.
- cross-filesystem linking : softlinks win
Softlinks can cross filesystem boundaries, which hardlinks can not.
- filesystem generators: softlinks win
Filesystem generators (genext2fs, mkfs.jffs2, mksquashfs, and maybe
all others, I guess) can't recognize hardlinks, and thus store the file
as many times as it has hardlinks.
But if you really want hardlinks, I guess you can install at runtime,
provided your filesystem is not RO.
I personnaly install links at runtime, and use hardlinks. But that's me,
and I tend to be a little bit over-complicated at times. And I have place.
So far.
So I will try to have some time in the WE to modify this, and make a patch
against svn rather than 1.01.
Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.
PS. Rob, as a side note, have you had time to use the command-line patch?
Have you (or anyone else!) got some comments about it?
YEM.
--
Yann E. MORIN
Roaming in the world...
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