syslinux vs grub4dos vs grub2

[jamesbond]

Good luck. The only reason why Porteus use uclibc is to make the static installer smaller. You can make static binary using glibc too.

It's getting out of topic, but here's the size comparison between static binaries created by glibc, uclibc and musl-libc (the binary itself does absolutely nothing) - it shows you the smallest possible size of static compile using these 3 libraries:

Code: Select all

echo "main(){}" > a.c
gcc -static -s -o a-glibc a.c
aboriginal/x86_64-gcc -static -s -o a-uclibc a.c
musl-gcc -static -s -o a-musl a.c
ls -lS a-*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 660592 Apr  9 23:49 a-glibc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   6576 Apr  9 23:49 a-uclibc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   2552 Apr  9 23:49 a-musl

PS: I forgot to say (for others who didn't read the link given by anikin) that Porteus made static syslinux so that they can use one common installer that can be used in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants. If the installer is not static, you need one that run on 32-bit (and depends on 32-bit glibc) and one 64-bit (that depends on 64-bit glibc). Item (b) and (c) itself are *not* platform dependent; only the installer is platform dependent if not static.

[gcmartin]

Do I feel a BM capable of many filesystems about to emerge with an installer capable of booting across many variants?

No answer required. Just a feeling with insights as time progresses.