Re: klibc - another libc?

H. Peter Anvin
2006-06-08T15:32:51Z

Followup to: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0606080036250.17704@scrub.home>
By author: Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>
> > To be able to *require* it, which means it can't significantly bloat
> > the total size of the kernel image. klibc binaries are *extremely*
> > small. Static kinit is only a few tens of kilobytes, a lot of which
> > is zlib.
>
> Every project starts small and has the annoying tendency to grow.
> That still doesn't answer, why it has to be distributed with the kernel,
> just install the thing somewhere under /lib and Kbuild can link to it. The
> point is that it contains nothing kernel specific and doesn't has to be
> rebult with every new kernel.
>

Actually, that isn't quite true. One of the ways klibc is kept small
is by not guaranteeing a stable ABI... and not having compatibility
support for older kernels. This is one of the kinds of luxuries that
bundling offers.

Does it make bundling mandatory? Not really. In fact, people have
been using klibc in its standalone form for years. However, I believe
there would be a lot of resistace to have the kernel tarball have
outside dependencies on anything but the most basic build tools.

-hpa