Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How low can you go?

[Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org>]

On Sat, 2011-04-02 at 13:24 +0700, Pandu Poluan wrote:
> Unfortunately, I can't go module-less; xtables-addons requires modules
> support.
> 
> How do you get static /dev ?

Go into /etc/conf.d/rc and change RC_DEVICES to "static".  Also if you
are using virtio block devices (as I am) then you will need to manually
create the /dev/vd* device nodes else the vm won't find the virtual
drives.

> 
> > I could probably get it lower by tweaking the kernel a bit more.
>  Also
> > it would probably use slightly less RAM if it were 32-bit.  Also,
> the
> > biggest user of memory are /bin/bash and /bin/login.  I could
> minimize
> > memory further by making the login shell ash or dash.
> >
> 
> I also rely on lots of bash scripts.
> 
> *sigh* ... I'll never get it as small as yours... but still I *am*
> interested in your memory-saving tricks :-) 

I'm not saying replace bash with dash.  I'm saying change your login
shell with dash (i.e. chsh).

Moreover, dash is POSIX compliant so it should be able to be used with
most shell scripts.  The only reason you need bash around is that
unfortunately baselayout-1 depends on some bash-specific features (like
bash arrays), so you can't completely get rid of it.  But for most stuff
dash is fine.