Tiny Core Base > TCB Talk

Why not uClibc?

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lordtangent:
Could you share any reasons why you rejected uClibc and went with regular glibc instead? (I'm hoping to avoid frustration if there are technical reasons why uclibc wouldn't be a good idea!)

And could you also clarify if all the bins are static. (I'm assuming they are but I figured it would be easier to just ask!)

The reason I'm asking is, if stuff is static (as I assume it would be considering how Tiny seems to work) I may try and do my own custom version of Tiny by just replacing a few of the binaries with uclibc versions compiled in my own env.

curaga:
No binaries here are static, not in the base or in the extensions. That would bring a huge size increase (I recall a hello world statically with glibc is 600kb..). However if you compile your own binaries statically with uclibc, they will work here too ignoring the shared glibc.

lordtangent:
Cool. Thanks for the info!

Maybe Roberts can explain why you guys shun uClibc. It seems like it would be a great fit for the project but I'm sure you have your reasons.

mikshaw:
According to roberts, "I opted not to use uClibc and the external cpio for easy remastering."
I assume that means he thought it would be easier to allow people to import binaries from other distros rather than having to build everything from source for uclibc.  This would also apply to extensions...I'm pretty sure there are some that were built from Debian or Slackware packages.

lordtangent:
That makes sense. Though the extra RAM and disk savings might still be worth the extra effort of going with uclibc.

Building stuff with uclibc is actually pretty easy under the embedded branch of Gentoo.  In the past what I've done is keep a separate uclibc "tree" and then chroot into it for compiling. But you could just as easily create a fully bootable setup and use it to host development sessions.

Huh... I just thought of a totally crazy idea. As I have already read on the forums (and it seems to be reiterated over and over) "There are no build scripts or environments for Tiny Core" ...  But what would be possible is  to create a Gentoo "ebuild" for the entire Tiny Core. There are your build scripts right there.  A distro hosted in a distro!

Add a couple or wrapper scripts (That could parse the ebuild to get the binaries to make the initrd, TCE/TCZ) the and at that point making new TCE or TCZs from anything in the Gentoo Portage tree would be trivial. Building the whole thing under uclibc would not be too tough.

Just an Idea. Not saying I'm quite ready to bite it off myself but I am considering it! (It would still be a lot easier than trying to totally re-create Tiny Core from scratch)

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