Steven Destika
2005-Sep-05  00:07 UTC
[dtrace-discuss] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Comments on SystemTap?
But Linux boots fine on that same machine with 128Mb RAM - It uses Grub too. So
I don''t really understand what you mean by Grub is memory hungry.
If you need a 256Mb RAMDISK - there is obviously loads of stuff in there which
can be optimized. Linux distros use busybox with ulibc for example in initrd to
reduce the memory requirement.
 --- On Sun 09/04, James C. McPherson < James.McPherson at Sun.COM >
wrote:
From: James C. McPherson [mailto: James.McPherson at Sun.COM]
To: sdestika at excite.com
     Cc: dtrace-discuss at opensolaris.org
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005 09:17:33 +1000
Subject: Re: [dtrace-discuss] Re:  Re:  Re:  Re:  Re:  Comments on SystemTap?
S Destika wrote:<br>> Ok. So probably it''s just that some one
filled up the RAMDISK with<br>> all sorts of unnecessary stuff - Linux
too, uses RAMDISK and boots<br>> fine with 128M - So I will open up a
bug @ bugs.opensolaris.org. <br><br>Hi Steve,<br>the reason we
have that 256mb hard limit is so that we can<br>support newboot aka
grub.<br><br>Grub is actually quite memory hungry, which is
unfortunate.<br>OTOH using Grub allows us to do away with the hideous and
much-<br>complained about Device Configuration Assistant. It
also<br>gives us an extensible framework for adding new drivers in
a<br>very easy fashion, something which the DCA never
allowed.<br><br>You can file whatever bug or RFE you want about
this, but I<br>don''t think you''ll get much
traction.<br><br>The benefits of newboot/grub far outweigh the
restrictions<br>of a minimum of 256mb of
ram.<br><br><br>Now as to "all sorts of unnecessary
stuff" -- what do you<br>think we put in it? Have you looked?
Remember that
what you<br>classify as unnecessary is quite probably _required_
for<br>Solaris -- based on our OS design and customer
feedback.<br><br><br>James C.
McPherson<br>--<br>Pacrim PTS Engineer            828 Pacific
Highway<br>                                Gordon NSW<br>Sun
Microsystems Australia     2072<br><br>
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