At 02:27 03/12/98 -0800, SL Baur wrote:
Even if true, it is no excuse for XEmacs package installation to puke
its guts out.
I'm not sure I understand, but I probably agree :) Failure of gzip or tar
seems quite high in the list of things that could fail during package
installation so we should cope somehow.
> One could argue that if your disk is likely to explode then
installing
> XEmacs will make it do so anyway :)
Packages differ wildly in size. The top 4 account for about 33% total
disk usage. Depending upon what has been installed, that may be
higher. For me, I see 71MB in a fully bytecompiled xemacs-package
tree and 53MB (39.2MB XEmacs, 13.8MB Mule) for what I have installed[1].
The "Big 4" packages:
Gnus 6.3MB
Leim 6.0MB
Calc 5.6MB
SKK 5.6MB
So you need 7Mb slack for installation - seems not unreasonable to me. I
guess the best thing to do would be to check how much space is actually
free and act accordingly. Ultimate paranoia would account for the
possibility that it may not be possible to install a newer package because
it is bigger than the previous one.
Writing as an expert in filling up disks of any size (:-), I repeat
my contention that we have to take into account filling disks and
doing something graceful when that occurs. I have blown out the disk
I use for distribution building on numerous occasions.
I can buy this.
andy
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" .sigs are like your face - rarely seen by you and uglier than you think"
Dr Andy Piper, Technical Architect, Parallax Solutions Ltd
mail: andyp(a)parallax.co.uk web:
www.parallax.co.uk/~andyp