From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Jul 10 02:32:34 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1ADBA9950DA for ; Fri, 10 Jul 2015 02:32:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D29CD1640 for ; Fri, 10 Jul 2015 02:32:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-74-114.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.74.114]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id A33C1251CB; Fri, 10 Jul 2015 04:32:31 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id t6A2WVi1006242; Fri, 10 Jul 2015 04:32:31 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 04:32:31 +0200 From: Polytropon To: Quartz Cc: FreeBSD questions Subject: Re: Questions about freebsd-update Message-Id: <20150710043231.8c7cb899.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <559F2C78.6090102@sneakertech.com> References: <559C6B73.8050509@sneakertech.com> <559EA8B8.8080701@sneakertech.com> <559ED47E.8050905@hiwaay.net> <559F25F8.1030508@sneakertech.com> <559F2853.5000103@sneakertech.com> <20150710040949.42c73f4d.freebsd@edvax.de> <559F2C78.6090102@sneakertech.com> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 02:32:34 -0000 On Thu, 09 Jul 2015 22:22:48 -0400, Quartz wrote: > > >> I should clarify: I know it's possible to do this by downloading the > >> patch/asc files and doing the whole make/install dance, but that > >> requires all the build tools to be installed which is awkward on > >> dedicated systems that need a small footprint. > > > > The tools involved here are already part of the base system (except > > they got manually removed, which renders the OS somehow incomplete). > > A system installation typically uses compiler, assembler, linker, > > installer, and make, which are all contained in the base distribution > > of the OS. > > Wait.... isn't all the build stuff part of the 'src' option during > install? No. The "src" distribution contains the sources which will be available in the /usr/src subtree. > If you unselect that, how does make/install apply patches if > the files it's patching aren't there? It doesn't do that, but the tools make, install, and patch themselves will be available. > >However, resource limitations might be a problem - even > > though nobody admits this possibility today anymore. ;-) > > Not having to install that ~1G of stuff would help a lot on some > systems, especially those booting off a small flash memory device. Has the source tree meanwhile grown to 1 GB in size? Regarding the development tools: They're mostly small binaries (where the justification of "small" depends on today's current hardware, of course) which cannot be de-selected during install. Looking at "man src.conf", I think you can't even de-select them during custom system builds. They are considered essential parts of the OS. Just imagine someone saying "I'm not going to copy any files, so /bin/cp can safely be removed!" and then wondering about the system behaving in strange ways... :-) Manually deleting stuff that is _not_ considered optional (by design) to the OS often is a bad idea. THe parts that you can individually tune can be derived from make.conf and src.conf. Of course I agree that there are legitimate reasons to use a computer which is not comparable to today's PC and server class hardware with plentycore CPUs, endless hard disks, 512 GB RAM, and a 10 Gbit Internet connection. And if you can omit something which is optional (by design) to help the system run better, faster, or more reliable, that's a valid consideration. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...