Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2007, Lee Forrest wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 08, 2007 at 11:40:27PM +0000, sindi keesan wrote:
>
> That's 5 long posts, all very interesting.
>
> But none of them offer an answer to the question I posed.
>
> "Which is Smaller, X or Svgalib?"

I posted file sizes for some of these programs.

> I posted approximate figures for X, but I don't use Svgalib, so
> I'm hoping someone who uses it will post something resembling my
> original post in response.
>
> Perhaps users of Svgalib don't want to face the fact that their
> choices result in larger OSs than users of X?

The opposite.

Latest svgalib is 420K (for two so.1 library files).  glibc-dynamic.
1.4.3 (which also supports i810, unlike the 1.3.1 in BL3) is 385K


gpm about 100K with library.  Only needed for a drawing program but some 
people like to use it with their browser or mc.

splitvt (40K) and screen (300K) can be used to do several things in one 
screen, or for more screens per vt, and you can copy between programs 
without a mouse (no need for gpm except for drawing program).


zgv is 200K (with 450K of image-format dependencies shared by links2)
--------------------

TinyX about 900K and does not work with i810 in standard BL3.

rxvt 78K (not needed to run X programs but is if you want to run
multiple programs on one screen.)

xv 1MB (because it is GUI).

Opera needs X.  It may be all I use X for.


-------------------
So does xpdf (7.8 MB for the latest version, because it is GUI).


Non-X ways to view pdf and ps files:

Svgalib svp ps/pdf viewer is 28K (350K static without vgalib libraries).

It needs gs executable (1.3MB in Slackware 7.1) and probably a few K of 
fonts.  It would take some time to strip gs to the minimum.  gs could be 
compiled smaller to support fewer devices (one printer, pbmraw and bmp256 
used by svp).  Since 500MB hard drives are free I have not bothered 
shrinking gs.

CLI pdftoppm (3.2 MB) or pdfimages (1.1MB) followed by zgv if you don't 
want gs.  Older versions are smaller but don't handle recent pdf's.

Or just print them with gs.

> Lee