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Because my Linux app needs to be distributed with the OS, and I want
to minimize the overall size of the distribution, I need to determine
the smallest set of packages that are required to run my app.

Is there a programmatic way to determine this?

Thanks

Bob Kircher
Seattle, WA

Bob Kircher wrote:
> Because my Linux app needs to be distributed with the OS, and I want
> to minimize the overall size of the distribution, I need to determine
> the smallest set of packages that are required to run my app.
>
> Is there a programmatic way to determine this?
>
You can find out part of what you need with the ldd command that shows
you which libraries are used by your program. For example,

valinux:jdbeyer[~/bin]$ ldd
libdb2.so.1 => /home/db2inst1/sqllib/lib/libdb2.so.1 (0x40015000)
libc.so.6 => /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/libc.so.6 (0x4083f000)
/usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/ld-linux.so.2 =>
/usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 => /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 (0x40948000)
libm.so.6 => /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/libm.so.6 (0x4098c000)
libcrypt.so.1 => /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x409a9000)
libdl.so.2 => /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/libdl.so.2 (0x409d6000)
libpthread.so.0 => /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x409da000)


Then, assuming your system uses rpm, you could do things like:

valinux:jdbeyer[~/bin]$ rpm -qf /home/db2inst1/sqllib/lib/libdb2.so.1
/usr/i386-glibc21-linux/lib/libc.so.6
db2cliv61-6.1.0-60
compat-glibc-6.2-2.1.3.2

etc.

Now if your program forks and execs other processes, you would have to
know that and work on them as well.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 2:30pm up 1 day, 1:58, 2 users, load average: 3.36, 3.36, 3.36

"Jean-David Beyer" <j@d.b> wrote in message news:3FFC6085.4040200@d.b...
> Bob Kircher wrote:
> > Because my Linux app needs to be distributed with the OS, and I want
> > to minimize the overall size of the distribution, I need to determine
> > the smallest set of packages that are required to run my app.
> >
> > Is there a programmatic way to determine this?
> >
> You can find out part of what you need with the ldd command that shows
> you which libraries are used by your program. For example,

Ouch. Painful.

If the package is RPM based, you can say "rpm -q package --requires" to get
a starting list, then go down the list of packages to see what else is
needed. Alternatively, if your installation is kickstart based or your
installation has the "yum" package manager, you can use it to automatically
find all the dependencies and try to supply them after installation of a
minimal OS.