On Wed Apr 19, 2000 at 10:04:35PM -0500, Mike McQuade wrote:
>
> Sorry if this has been covered, there is a "tip" on Linux.com
> about using 'gzexe' to compress executables.
>
> http://linux.com/tuneup/database.phtml/Misc/001263.html
>
> Has anyone tried this ?
>
> Any caveats to this besides slower startup of the compressed
> executable ?
I have tried a few of these things. The problem is that every one of them I
have looked at uses tmpfile(3) or some such means to create a file in /tmp and
then decompresses the executable to the tmpfile, and then does an exec on the
tmpfile. So you need to have the diskspace free to be writing into /tmp alot.
This also introduces some potential security problems. Since the /tmp dir on
most of the systems I work on is a ramdisk, I have never felt these things were
worth the tradeoff.
You will probably get more bang for your buck using something like
the compressed ext2 filesystem
http://e2compr.memalpha.cx/e2compr/
> I tried it on our application and it shrunk it down
> 69%, my thought was to shrink all the executables
> that are seldom used (we already use BusyBox, a million
> thanks Erik !).
<grin>
glad to help,
-Erik
--
Erik B. Andersen Web: http://www.xmission.com/~andersen/
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
--
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with the command "unsubscribe linux-embedded" in the message body.
For more information, see <http://waste.org/mail/linux-embedded>.
