From: loki AT maison-otaku DOT net (Jeremy Blackman) Subject: Re: Why is cygwin.dll? 15 Jan 1997 14:55:31 -0800 Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Sender: loki AT herne DOT dragoncat DOT net Original-To: "M.Carter" Original-cc: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19970115122623.18afdcfe@scooter.gcal.ac.uk> Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, M.Carter wrote: > Can anyone explain the general purpose of cygwin.dll? Surely it would be > better to incorporate any of the facilities it provides in with the executable. > This would lead to a much simpler system. Installation and execution of binaries > would be easier. > > Or is it not that simple? I know, for instance, that DJGPP requires a > DPMI. On the other hand, there are many executables that you can get over > the Internet which install directly, and work straight away. > This is my assumption, do some simple math: CYGWIN.DLL = 3,046,367 bytes (3 megs, roughly) Sure, you could basically put that into any given .EXE Now, figure on programs like grep.exe (91,648 bytes) having to include that library in their .EXE...grep is now 3 megs, instead of 91k. Figure on that size increase for every program compiled by the gnu-win32 kit...INCLUDING THE KIT ITSELF (e.g. everything in the binary directory). Do the math (120+ files in the binary directory * 3 megs = 360+ additional megs)... and you'll see that a substantial chunk of your hard drive has just disappeared. On top of that, add an additional 3 megs to each executable YOU, as a user, compile with the gnu-win32 kit... I know MY hard drive can't handle that. Besides, 1 meg is hefty enough for an executable for one program I wrote...4 would be pushing the limits of sanity, distribution-wise. Isn't it just much nicer to have one .DLL instead of statically linking the entire cygwin library in? :) It's easy enough to write an Installer for Win95 or NT which installs cygwin.dll as a shared file (which is what I did for my program)... one copy of the file for everything that needs it is much cleaner. ;) --Jeremy - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".