Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 4736

I have decided to start really learning how to program, and didn't want to start off with bad bloat habits, so I have been doing research on the topic for quite some time. So long that some of the better bloat-light example have gone into hiatus. It's probably time I started posting some findings.

I don't have enough time to post a philosophical statement on the subject or reasoning behind my choices, so I am just posting the projects at the moment.

Here they are in no particular order:
Ssl/encryption ... libtomcrypt
Imaging ... stb_image (nothings.org) or nanojpeg+lodepng+webp
Ecmascript (aka javascript) ... see-3.1.1424.tar.gz (currently unmaintained), duktape
OpenGL ... tinyGL <<== SDL implementation
Html5 ... hubbub
Css ... libcss
Svg ... libtinysvg
Lua ... stua (nothings.org)
Freetype ... stb_freetype
Tcl ... jimtcl
Ogg ... stb_ogg
Gcc ... llvm+clang or tcc
Java ... avian
Perl ... microperl (distributed with perl)
Python ... tinypy
Ruby ... tinyrb
GUI ... sdl + agar + tekui ...
Gnu-utils ... Googles toolbox, busybox, embutils, toybox...
Video ... Webm
Mp3 ... minimp3, pdmp3
libc... musl, uclibc, bionic,diet,bsd...
Libstdc++ ... uclibc++, stlport, eastl, ustl, libcxx, libcpp,... the sgi stl,
More to follow.

sunburnt · Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 5083 Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

Do check out "gtk-server" at: http://www.gtk-server.org/
It works with any interpreted language to make GTK+ GUIs.
It uses absolute coordinance, or hBox / vBox, or table box ( best ).

I`m stuck at a point with a mod. I`m writing to simplify it`s syntax.

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 4736

Here is the most interesting part of gtk-server:

sunburnt · Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 5083 Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

Yeah... I neglected to mention that part, I hadn`t played with it yet though.
It appears to be totally open and can be expanded in almost any manner.!

Here`s the GPL doc. that Peter posted at the web site:
http://www.gtk-server.org/gpl.txt

jamesbond · Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 3052 Location: The Blue Marble

jamesjeffries2 · Joined: 27 Apr 2008 Posts: 196

You may also be interested in the TinyCCompiler. Not sure about the size of the code it produces but it's pretty inspirational if nothing else!

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 4736

tcc could go in the list I guess, but not because it is a small compiler (the compiler is a choice of the end user or packager and _should_ be irrelevant to the developer except to test that code compiles with it) - just because it can be used to run c code as a scripting language (with it, who needs gtkserver)

sunburnt · Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 5083 Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 4736

The tcc web site uses the linux kernel as the example of using C as a script, but you can use pretty much anything that you can compile on a single line (you can specify multiple files and defines - I've done it with jwm, rxvt and others)

vovchik · Joined: 23 Oct 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Ukraine

Dear puppians,

Some time ago I asked Peter (GTK-server and BaCon) to include a compile option for tcc, which he kindly did (quite some time ago), since I thought it would be nice to have an unbloated minimal development environment (tcc and BaCon) for tiny Puplets. I compiled tcc and then tried compiling a few things in C and in BaCon and discovered that the resulting binaries were immense. Technosaurus could probably figure out why this is the case and provide a nice solution. I didn't pursue it...but if tcc could be made to generate tiny binaries it would indeed be a useful.

With kind regards,
vovchik

sunburnt · Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 5083 Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

That`s something you don`t think about...

tcc may not have many options and methods for stripping and reducing size.

seaside · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 915

Can't remember which thread this was, but I think Big_bass compiled some bacon binaries in tinycc and after upxing, they were of reasonable size.

Regards,
s

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 4736

I don't know if tcc uses the -s flag or just ignores it (as it does with all unsupported flags) but it doesn't matter because ...

you get a smaller binary with:
strip -s -R .note -R .comment *
or for libs
strip --strip-unneeded -R .note -R .comment *.so*

fyi, Rob Landley is debating on relicensing toybox to a more permissive license
http://landley.net/notes-2011.html#13-11-2011

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 4736

a couple new ones to add (both permissively licensed)
axtls - light alternative to openssl
klone - web server with builtin application framework that uses compiled C

Ibidem · Joined: 25 May 2010 Posts: 553 Location: State of Jefferson

perl:
also miniperl (perl builds microperl to start configuring, then miniperl to finish that, then builds perl itself); it's a lot closer to full perl.
CC/gcc: also pcc http://pcc.ludd.ltu.se/ - there are some very recent fixes you may want if you use it.
code is around 30-40% larger, if musl libc.so is taken as representative
browser:
retawq is the smallest I've seen; links2 in gui mode aka xlinks is the smallest with a reasonable gui (retawq offers an X version, but uses xcurses/pdcurses to do it)
asmutils is small, though it is so feature-starved that it may be unusable; klibc-utils is standard for initramfs.
gettext-tiny (https://github.com/rofl0r/gettext-tiny) is a package to fake having gettext/libintl when you don't want it.