[PATCH] Applet installation

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 07 October 2005 11:27, Yann E. MORIN wrote:
> 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.

Valid point.

>  - 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.

Actually, mksquashfs can recognize hardlinks.  (So can some versions of tar.)

> But if you really want hardlinks, I guess you can install at runtime,
> provided your filesystem is not RO.

Actually, the one use I can see for the busybox --install functionality is to 
throw links into a ramfs you mount in the $PATH.

> So I will try to have some time in the WE to modify this, and make a patch
> against svn rather than 1.01.

I look forward to it.

> 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.

The command line parser/modutils patch?  Not yet.  Friends visiting from out 
of town, plus putting 1.02 together, plus job hunting, plus about 8 other 
things this week.  I hope to get to it sunday.

Rob