Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 20:48:58 -0800 (PST) From: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com> To: arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The shared /bin and /sbin bikeshed Message-ID: <200011110448.eAB4mw122602@earth.backplane.com> References: <200011110315.eAB3Fp909237@mass.osd.bsdi.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
This conversation is starting to wander. Please, guys, I am
certainly not advocating that we throw away shared libraries!
I am fully aware of their advantages. I am simply pointing
out that memory utilization is not one of them.
The problem with that 92K of data space is that it contains
data elements for the entire libc library, not just the
pieces you use. The result is that even if you only use a
small part of libc, you will still wind up dirtying many of
those pages due to the fact that the few elements you do
use are spread all over that 92K of data space.
Bruce made this clear in his posting, but obviously
some people weren't listening.
In a static binary only the data elements you reference
are linked in, thus packing the data and bss space and
reducing the memory footprint.
For the vast majority of systems, including mine,
shared libraries are preferable for many reasons,
but there is an undeniable cost for that convenience.
Certain binaries in my Diablo USENET newsfeed code
were linked -static precisely because it cut a
significant amount of overhead off of separately-exec'd
instances.
-Matt
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200011110448.eAB4mw122602>