Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 17:33:45 -0400 From: Matthew Graybosch <matthew@starbreaker.net> To: Denis Troshin <weiv@mail.ru> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Necessary code or trash? Message-ID: <20030828213345.GD80772@christabel.starbreaker.net> In-Reply-To: <1671561231.20280829005225@mail.ru> References: <1671561231.20280829005225@mail.ru>
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On 00:52 Tue 29 Aug , Denis Troshin wrote: > Hi! > > I have FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE. > > Why most of bin (sbin) utilities are so big. > > For example, > > rm - 410 268 bytes, > mv - 407 568 bytes, > date - 423 748 bytes. > > Do they really contain only necessary code or > have more than a half of trash? As others explained these commands and others are statically linked so that they do not depend on libraries that live in /usr. Since these are very basic commands, it's a bad idea to have them depend on a library that might not be available if only the / filesystem is mounted. Since / usually just contains /root, /bin, /sbin and a couple of others, statically linked programs in /bin and /sbin are always available, even in single user mode. Booting into single user only mounts /bin, which is why some people on the list have advised sticking with /bin/sh when asked about changing root's login shell. Hope this helps. -- Matthew Graybosch http://www.starbreaker.net "The best way to lose an argument is to throw the first punch."
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