[maemo-developers] compatibility vs speed and bloat Re: [maemo-developers] gtk+ builtin stock icons removed

[From: Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri]

On 10/27/05, Frantisek Dufka <dufkaf at seznam.cz> wrote:
> Eero Tamminen napsal(a):
> >>I know this is pretty bold comment from me but if you think 30KB is
> >>enough to break compatibility, why not to use uClibc instead of glibc or
> >>ipkg packaging system from Familiar instead of full dpkg and .deb?
> >
> >
> > Package database and tools don't consume RAM.
> >
> Well they take flash space and RAM only when executed. Bigger binary and
> database may also flush file cache that could make the device feel
> slower after installing something.

sure


> > uClibc is not binary compatible to Debian.  Glibc and the Maemo Gtk
> > are both.  You can for example take Debian ARM strace binary directly
> > from debian repo and copy it to the device and it works...
>
> Yes, but is such binary compatibily useful? Do you actually repackage
> anything direcly from debian without any changes? Is recompiling too
> much work? Will the target audience for N770 actually try to install any
> debian package for ARM (like strace or something gtk based) when there
> is even no terminal in production version?

+1


> There should be other reason for using glibc, like that it is better and
> not slower or not substantialy bigger or something like this :-) Or
> maybe you cannot compile Opera of Flash player with it. GTK and xfree
> seems to work at least on i386
>
> http://www.emdebian.org/links.html - Erik Andersen's uclibc version of
> Debian
> http://people.debian.org/~andersee/uwoody/main/binary-i386/
>
> I know everybody went with glibc (Sharp on Zaurus, Familiar for iPAQs)
> but if performance is priority and everything for the platform has to be
> recompiled anyway, uClibc based system may save more than 30KB of RAM
> per proccess. Or maybe not or there are other problems. I don't know the
> answer, that's why I asked.

Could you do some tests if basic maemo platform compiles with uclib
and how much space it saves? Both static (file size) and dynamic (apps
running).

If it proves valuable, nokia people may consider.

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Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri
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