A/UX Lite

[William Roberts]

In <3138 at skivs.UUCP> jmm at skivs.UUCP (Joel M. Miller) writes:

>Having installed A/UX and X-Windows on a Quantum-80 (sans games and man pages,
>of course), I find that I have only a few of MB of disk space available for
>my *work*.  Any suggestions on how to reclaim a few significant -- and at
>this point, 1 MB is significant -- chunks of space?

You can save approximately 600K by getting rid of /newunix.
Before you all falme me, what I mean is as follows:

1) build a kernel that contains the least mix of options that you
   would normally want, but without NuBus devices. For example,
   you might decide to have ufs, BNET, all the appletalk stuff, not
   the Apple tape drive. This kernel is going to be used as a basis
   for autoconfiguration, so you won't be able to take things out later.

2) Use that kernel to replace /etc/config.d/newunix, and then throw
   away any of the /etc/boot.d/X, /etc/install.d/boot.d/X and 
   /etc/master.d/X files for modules that are present in your new
   version of /etc/config.d/newunix.

3) Remove /newunix and make it a hard link to /etc/config.d/newunix

Total saving is basically the size of /newunix, and all you've lost is the
ability to make really small, unworkable kernels. You can always go back
to your distribution medium or some kind of backup if you really need to.

Practical example: the CDROM I received has /newunix and /etc/config.d/newunix
with modules as follows

/etc/config.d/newunix	429631
Name        Major Flags  Board_ID Version           Prefix #Dev #Cont Addresses
scc         0     0x0000 0        00000000-00000000 sc     0    0    
scsi        24    0x0000 0        00000000-00000000 hd     0    0    
tty         0     0x0000 0        00000000-00000000 tt     0    0    
streams     0     0x0000 0        00000000-00000000 str    0    0    

/newunix	 698160 bytes
Name        Major Flags  Board_ID Version           Prefix #Dev #Cont Addresses
scc         0     0x0001 0        00000000-00000000 sc     0    0    
scsi        24    0x0001 0        00000000-00000000 hd     0    0    
tty         0     0x0001 0        00000000-00000000 tt     0    0    
streams     0     0x0001 0        00000000-00000000 str    0    0    
at_sig      0     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 at_sig_ 1    0    
svfs        0     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 svfs_  1    0    
toolbox     4     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 ui_    0    0    
ufs         0     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 ufs    1    0    
snd         9     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 snd    0    0    
elap        15    0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 elap_  1    0    
ddp         16    0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 ddp    1    0    
llap        17    0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 llap_  1    0    
atp         0     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 atp    1    0    
at_atp      0     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 atp_   0    0    
at_pap      0     0x0002 0        00000064-2086666304 pap_   0    0    
at_papd     0     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 papd_  0    0    
bnet_dr     0     0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 BNET   0    0    
tc          18    0x0002 0        00000000-00000000 tc_    8    0    

That looks fair enough to me (though I might get rid of tc if I had the time)
so I can remove all of the files associated with the modules listed,
namely

/etc/{boot.d,master.d,install.d/boot.d}/{tc,bnet_dr,elap,ufs, ...}

then

rm /etc/config.d/newunix
ln /newunix /etc/config.d/newunix

The only thing to watch out for is that you MUST NOT uninstall the
things you are removing, because that will probably get rid of the
files in /dev. Likewise you need to make sure that the /etc/startup
file for your revised /newunix is kept somewhere safe and executed
in addition to any /etc/startup file made by a real autoconfig.

The Bottom Line: This saves about 600K if you know what you are doing
and you really, really need the space.
-- 

William Roberts                 ARPA: liam at cs.qmw.ac.uk
Queen Mary & Westfield College  UUCP: liam at qmw-cs.UUCP
Mile End Road                   AppleLink: UK0087
LONDON, E1 4NS, UK              Tel:  071-975 5250 (Fax: 081-980 6533)