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Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

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Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#31

Post by krageon »

an_opabinia wrote: post #30
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I'd love an ecosystem where things tend to be statically linked unless there is a good reason not to. Me too, but I'm not sure this project brings us closer to that goal. I don't need the base OS to be statically linked—in fact, that's where static vs dynamic linking matters least , because it all comes preinstalled. What I want is for everything else which I may want to install on top to be available as statica…

Since most common applications have moved to the web, and the biggest Linux end user deployment by far, Android, was created from fresh beginnings, the idea of the user being concerned with minutia of binaries is already far along a long road to the grave.

This right here is what's wrong with the application space. The idea that this could be true leads to terrible software design and slow, bloated applications. In the current landscape is it perfectly possible (and I'd say even usual) to do most of your work and processing on local system binaries (that aren't a browser or a browser with a different name).

Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#33

Post by Wowfunhappy »

an_opabinia wrote: post #30
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I'd love an ecosystem where things tend to be statically linked unless there is a good reason not to. Me too, but I'm not sure this project brings us closer to that goal. I don't need the base OS to be statically linked—in fact, that's where static vs dynamic linking matters least , because it all comes preinstalled. What I want is for everything else which I may want to install on top to be available as statica…

Since most common applications have moved to the web, and the biggest Linux end user deployment by far, Android, was created from fresh beginnings, the idea of the user being concerned with minutia of binaries is already far along a long road to the grave.

Eh, but if that was completely true I'd be using ChromeOS, or something similar. Perhaps some day I will—but as of 2020, I still find myself popping into a lot of native apps day-to-day.

Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#34

Post by [deleted] »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #21
Subsentient wrote: post #13

Honestly, I'm team dynamic linking. I prefer to have things clearly separated in functionality and easily upgradeable. Statically linking all the OS utilities to their dependency libraries, over and over again? Dear god that sounds awful.

There's no reason that there needs to be such extremes as either all statically linked or all dynamically linked. History has proven that dynamic linking causes a large number of headaches, and static linking has drawbacks as well. There is a reasonable middle ground: base system functionality that is utilized by most software (stdlib, cryptography, networking, gui, etc) should be dynamic and everything else should b…

[deleted]

Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#36

Post by birktj »

HALtheWise wrote: post #7

This seems to "statically link" binaries in the sense that each program it ships with is a standalone binary. Does anyone know whether it's possible to truly statically link an entire Linux install, in the sense that the whole system is a single statically linked file including the kernel, display manager, web browser, etc so that link-time optimization can deduplicate code across the entire system?

I don't know if this is what you are thinking of, but there is this concept in embedded systems sometimes refereed to as library operating systems [1]. My understanding is that in this model the operating system is implemented as a library and you your system would consider of one application that uses the os library to do tasks usually handled by the operating system.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system#Library

Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#37

Post by cyphar »

HALtheWise wrote: post #7

This seems to "statically link" binaries in the sense that each program it ships with is a standalone binary. Does anyone know whether it's possible to truly statically link an entire Linux install, in the sense that the whole system is a single statically linked file including the kernel, display manager, web browser, etc so that link-time optimization can deduplicate code across the entire system?

This is kind of the idea behind unikernels. There are experimental Linux-based unikernels, but the more mature unikernels are custom.

Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#38

Post by qz2 »

fmakunbound wrote: post #35

Ok maybe this is dumb question and is addressed somewhere: If a security problem is found, e.g. in muscl (the C lib), then is the user supposed to rebuild everything that statically linked it??

Yep. And also because it's statically linked and optimised, which version of musl that ships in that binary may be obfuscated somewhat. And no, I don't get it either.

Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#39

Post by arendtio »

gameswithgo wrote: post #15
mittermayr wrote: post #8

Would be cool to get a bit of a "why this matters" intro on repos like this. I clicked through the details, but left wondering if I have any potential use for this. Can I compile this onto a USB stick and use it as a throw-away boot Linux for maintenance tasks? Can I cross-compile this for embedded devices? What is the statically-linked advantage here? Not trying to minimize the effort, I would actually love to see m…

As someone who uses linux casually, I often experience pain when I download a program, try to run it, and it fails because some dependency is not installed or is not the right version. So you try to figure out how to install it and it in turn needs a couple of things. All of this works fine if whatever package manager your distro uses has the program you want, but the package managers don't have evertying! So I'd lov…

> So I'd love an ecosystem where things tend to be statically linked unless there is a good reason not to.

Well, every time there is a bug fix in one of your dependencies you/your distribution would have to recompile everything that depends on it. Which will use quite some resources.

So to actually use this you would have to reinstall (nearly) all programs once a week or so (no matter if source or binary distribution). While that is quite possible with modern internet connections, I am not sure if it solves all the problems you might think it solves. After all, even nowadays application authors could provide static packages, but many don't do it.

After using quite a few distributions over the years, I like Arch Linux best at the moment, as the combination of binary distribution, with frequent updates, and the source based AUR, with the very large amount of packages, suits my needs very good.

Re: Oasis: a small statically-linked Linux system

#40

Post by rini17 »

fmakunbound wrote: post #35

Ok maybe this is dumb question and is addressed somewhere: If a security problem is found, e.g. in muscl (the C lib), then is the user supposed to rebuild everything that statically linked it??

Not a dumb question just there is always a catch: dynamical link saves you from rebuild only if the fix is carefully backported (by a distributor), which can introduce issues, too. The upstream has usually moved on in the meantime and the library isn't binary compatible.
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