Into.the.Void.

Today, while studying I decided to manually run a prelink on my system. For no good reason. Just boredom I guess. The results were pretty interesting though.

Among the output there was a line that made a very big impression to me.
prelink: /usr/bin/urxvt: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library //usr//lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
Why oh why is libGL.so.1 inside the shared libraries of a terminal ???

I decided to take a closer look to the urxvt executable.
# ldd /usr/bin/urxvt
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libXft.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXft.so.2 (0x45df1000)
libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x43839000)
libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x45f4b000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x4b995000)
libAfterImage.so.0 => /usr/lib/libAfterImage.so.0 (0x4f62d000)
libperl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libperl.so.1 (0x43a60000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x4c408000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x4c2f4000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4c19a000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x4c17c000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x4c52f000)
libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x46414000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x4368c000)
libexpat.so.1 => /usr/lib/libexpat.so.1 (0x4c4b1000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x4cda8000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x4c401000)
librsvg-2.so.2 => /usr/lib/librsvg-2.so.2 (0x4bb34000)
libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 (0x4afc4000)
libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x4af3a000)
libGL.so.1 => //usr//lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1 (0x4bbb8000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4c2cc000)
libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x4cc4e000)
libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x4cc8c000)
libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0x4cc67000)
libgsf-1.so.114 => /usr/lib/libgsf-1.so.114 (0x4baff000)
libcroco-0.6.so.3 => /usr/lib/libcroco-0.6.so.3 (0x4bac7000)
libxml2.so.2 => /usr/lib/libxml2.so.2 (0x43f9e000)
libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 (0x4afde000)
libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 (0x4b009000)
libpango-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so.0 (0x4af85000)
libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x4af77000)
libglib-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x4ae68000)
libcairo.so.2 => /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2 (0x475c9000)
libpng12.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0x43750000)
libGLcore.so.1 => //usr//lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGLcore.so.1 (0x4b1e8000)
libnvidia-tls.so.1 => //usr//lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.1 (0x4b991000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x4ba86000)
libbz2.so.1 => /lib/libbz2.so.1 (0x4db01000)
libpixman-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpixman-1.so.0 (0x4762f000)
# ldd /usr/bin/urxvt | wc -l
40

That’s the time when someone can scream! 40 shared libraries for jsut a terminal ??? Why why why?

Ok it was time to check on the dependencies of the rxvt-unicode ebuild
From http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/x11-terms/rxvt-unicode/rxvt-unicode-9.02-r1.ebuild?view=markup
IUSE="truetype perl iso14755"
# see bug #115992 for modular x deps
RDEPEND="x11-libs/libX11
x11-libs/libXft
media-libs/libafterimage
x11-libs/libXrender
perl? ( dev-lang/perl )"
DEPEND="${RDEPEND}
dev-util/pkgconfig
x11-proto/xproto"


Now what’s that libaferimage ?

# eix libafterimage
[I] media-libs/libafterimage
Available versions: ~1.07 1.15 {examples gif jpeg mmx nls png tiff}
Installed versions: 1.15(00:35:13 06/22/08)(mmx -examples -gif -jpeg -nls -png -tiff)
Homepage: http://www.afterstep.org/afterimage/index.php
Description: Afterstep's standalone generic image manipulation library


I don’t use any images on my terminal, so why am I not given the option not to have that dependency as a USE flag ? Without losing any more time I copied the /usr/portage/x11-terms/rxvt-unicode/ to my /usr/local/portage/ directory, and modified the ebuild a bit:
diff -uN /usr/portage/x11-terms/rxvt-unicode/rxvt-unicode-9.02-r1.ebuild /usr/local/portage/x11-terms/rxvt-unicode/rxvt-unicode-9.02-r2.ebuild
--- /usr/portage/x11-terms/rxvt-unicode/rxvt-unicode-9.02-r1.ebuild 2008-05-05 23:39:36.000000000 +0300
+++ /usr/local/portage/x11-terms/rxvt-unicode/rxvt-unicode-9.02-r2.ebuild 2008-06-22 00:55:04.000000000 +0300
@@ -11,18 +11,16 @@
LICENSE="GPL-2"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="alpha amd64 hppa ~ia64 ppc ppc64 sparc x86 ~x86-fbsd"
-IUSE="truetype perl iso14755"
-
+IUSE="afterimage truetype perl iso14755"
# see bug #115992 for modular x deps
RDEPEND="x11-libs/libX11
x11-libs/libXft
- media-libs/libafterimage
+ afterimage? (media-libs/libafterimage)
x11-libs/libXrender
perl? ( dev-lang/perl )"
DEPEND="${RDEPEND}
dev-util/pkgconfig
x11-proto/xproto"
-
src_unpack() {
unpack ${A}
cd "${S}"
@@ -35,14 +33,12 @@
"s~@TIC@ \(\$(srcdir)/etc/rxvt\)~@TIC@ -o ${D}/${tdir} \1~" \
doc/Makefile.in
}
-
src_compile() {
myconf=''
-
use iso14755 || myconf='--disable-iso14755'
-
econf \
--enable-everything \
+ $(use_enable afterimage afterimage) \
$(use_enable truetype xft) \
$(use_enable perl) \
--disable-text-blink \


I re-emerged urxvt using the new ebuild from my local portage and I was shocked at the results:
# ldd /usr/bin/urxvt
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libXft.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXft.so.2 (0x45df1000)
libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x43839000)
libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x45f4b000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x4b995000)
libperl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libperl.so.1 (0x43a60000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x4c408000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x4c2f4000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4c19a000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x4c17c000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x4c52f000)
libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x46414000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x4368c000)
libexpat.so.1 => /usr/lib/libexpat.so.1 (0x4c4b1000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x4cda8000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x4c401000)
libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x4cc4e000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4c2cc000)
libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x4cc8c000)
libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0x4cc67000)
# ldd /usr/bin/urxvt | wc -l
20

100% less shared libraries!!!

What about memory usage ? I had not closed my 4 previously opened urxvt terms so a “ps auxww | grep urxvt” was just enough to check the differences:
user 3594 0.0 0.8 25920 10796 ? Ss 19:02 0:00 urxvt
user 6416 0.0 0.8 26820 11564 ? Ss 18:12 0:00 urxvt
user 6519 0.1 0.9 27132 12040 ? Ss 18:13 0:08 urxvt
user 15484 0.0 0.7 25356 10332 ? S 19:42 0:00 urxvt -fn xft:Dejavu Sans Mono:size=9:style=book -b 0 -embed 10485763 -name yeahconsole
user 27957 1.0 0.4 9628 5652 ? Ss 19:50 0:00 urxvt

Amazing ? Almost 1/3 VSZ and 1/2 of RSS!! For someone who has constantly more than 4-5 terms open the benefits are more than great 😀
This is going to be a great improvement for the next version of iloog too.

Being more than happy with my resource savings I decided to take a look at the Gentoo bugzilla to see if someone else had the same “problem” with me. Apparently I am not the only one asking for that USE flag since there’s already an open bug. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=221835

One lesson learned. When bumping into a problem with a Gentoo ebuild next time I’ll take a look at the Gentoo bugzilla before doing anything else by myself since there’s always some other crazy guy who has probably already bumped into the same bug and has already reported it. 🙂

*Update*
The USE flag has been enabled in the latest rxvt-unicode ebuild for version 9.05. That happened just yesterday. Take a look at: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=198944

Filed by kargig at 01:09 under Gentoo,Linux
6 Comments | 10,402 views