Towards a small kernel image

Bryce Kampjes bryce at kampjes.demon.co.uk
Thu Jul 27 22:58:30 UTC 2006


Pavel Krivanek writes:
 > I have to draw the attention to the next one perspective. If we want
 > to have future versions of Squeak based on some small UI-less minimal
 > image, we will have got quite small sources file, big changes and we
 > will lose history information (we will have versions of individual
 > packages).
 > The question is if we want to have compression in the kernel image (to
 > support the compressed sources).

Are there any plans to use your small image as the official base
image? Using a small base image then importing externally supported
packages should make image maintenence much easier as there will be
less code. Is this a good time to burn bridges to move forward to
a more modular future?

Sure there's a risk that we might drop code, but code that isn't
maintained will rot inside the image as well as outside. If people
know that packages will be gone unless they do something, there is a
chance that they will step forward knowing the stakes even though they
might not have volunteered if the code was in the image rotting slowly
through lack of attention.

Bryce



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