Mailing List Archive: Linux: Kernel

[OT] Re: [patch for 2.6.26 0/7] Architecture Independent Markers

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mhiramat at redhat

Mar 28, 2008, 6:34 AM

Post #1 of 3 (126 views)
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[OT] Re: [patch for 2.6.26 0/7] Architecture Independent Markers

Ingo Molnar wrote:
> furthermore, and because it's Friday again, let me remind folks that
> SystemTap has an even more significant bloat problem: the fact that it
> needs a huge download:

Ingo, that seems very off-topic...

> Installing:
> kernel-debuginfo x86_64 2.6.25-0.163.rc7.git1.fc9
> development-debuginfo 198 M
> Installing for dependencies:
> kernel-debuginfo-common x86_64 2.6.25-0.163.rc7.git1.fc9
> development-debuginfo 30 M
>
> Total download size: 229 M
>
> for _every_ updated kernel. That 229 MB size reduces the user base of
> SystemTap (which is otherwise a totally brilliant and cool tool) to 1%
> of its potential userbase, to those truly desperate persons who really
> _need_ to get their problem debugged somehow. But it's nowhere near
> usable as an easy, ad-hoc kernel instrumentation tool, just due to the
> sheer size it brings.

Sure, it is a thorny issue especially for users of daily-kernel-updating
distribution.

However, when updating kernel from tarball, We can get full set of debuginfo
just by building kernel with CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO. I think it is enough
usable for kernel developers.

BTW, we already started working on the symbol-table based probing.
http://sources.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4311

> for heaven's sake, we can have 3 years of _full Linux kernel history_,
> with all 87875 commits, with full changelog and dependencies and full
> source code included, packed into a rather tight, 180 MB git repository
> ...
>
> [. and then i havent even begun about the on-disk footprint of this
> monstrum, after the packages have been installed: an additional 850 MB.
> Puh-lease ... ]

Thank for Moore's law and all storage engineers, nowadays we can buy
an 1TB(=1000GB!) HDD with less than $300!(I also surprised...)
And many other compressed filesystem can be used for saving disk space.

Best regards,

--
Masami Hiramatsu

Software Engineer
Hitachi Computer Products (America) Inc.
Software Solutions Division

e-mail: mhiramat[at]redhat.com

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vda.linux at googlemail

Mar 31, 2008, 6:43 PM

Post #2 of 3 (112 views)
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Re: [OT] Re: [patch for 2.6.26 0/7] Architecture Independent Markers [In reply to]

On Friday 28 March 2008 14:34, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> > for heaven's sake, we can have 3 years of _full Linux kernel history_,
> > with all 87875 commits, with full changelog and dependencies and full
> > source code included, packed into a rather tight, 180 MB git repository
> > ...
> >
> > [. and then i havent even begun about the on-disk footprint of this
> > monstrum, after the packages have been installed: an additional 850 MB.
> > Puh-lease ... ]
>
> Thank for Moore's law and all storage engineers, nowadays we can buy
> an 1TB(=1000GB!) HDD with less than $300!(I also surprised...)
> And many other compressed filesystem can be used for saving disk space.

This is not a valid technical reason for creating bloatware.

Bloatware's main problem is not a cost of storing it or
downloading it. The main problem that over time it becomes
an unmaintainable monstrosity nobody is willing to deal with.

I would rather try to find and fix a bug in 2000 lines of C code
than in 200 000 lines.
--
vda
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mhiramat at redhat

Apr 1, 2008, 7:30 AM

Post #3 of 3 (105 views)
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Re: [OT] Re: [patch for 2.6.26 0/7] Architecture Independent Markers [In reply to]

Hi Denys,

Denys Vlasenko wrote:
> On Friday 28 March 2008 14:34, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
>>> for heaven's sake, we can have 3 years of _full Linux kernel history_,
>>> with all 87875 commits, with full changelog and dependencies and full
>>> source code included, packed into a rather tight, 180 MB git repository
>>> ...
>>>
>>> [. and then i havent even begun about the on-disk footprint of this
>>> monstrum, after the packages have been installed: an additional 850 MB.
>>> Puh-lease ... ]
>> Thank for Moore's law and all storage engineers, nowadays we can buy
>> an 1TB(=1000GB!) HDD with less than $300!(I also surprised...)
>> And many other compressed filesystem can be used for saving disk space.
>
> This is not a valid technical reason for creating bloatware.
>
> Bloatware's main problem is not a cost of storing it or
> downloading it. The main problem that over time it becomes
> an unmaintainable monstrosity nobody is willing to deal with.
>
> I would rather try to find and fix a bug in 2000 lines of C code
> than in 200 000 lines.

If it is a program code, you're right.
However, the debuginfo is just a set of data files generated from
c-source code by the compiler, so you don't need to maintain it.

Thank you,

> --
> vda

--
Masami Hiramatsu

Software Engineer
Hitachi Computer Products (America) Inc.
Software Solutions Division

e-mail: mhiramat[at]redhat.com

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