Re: Ghostrscript/GhostPDL 9.18 Release Candidate 1

On 25 September 2015 at 10:21, Johannes Meixner <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> On Sep 24 16:29 Chris Liddell wrote (excerpt):
>
>> Basically, compile inits builds all the initialization, resource and font
>> files (and ICC profiles) into a ROM filesystem, and links that into the
>> executable.
>>
>
> Yes, this is what I know from
> ghostscript-9.18rc1/doc/Make.htm#Precompiled_data
>
> I.e. I know the technical facts but I do not know
> the reasoning behind.
> For example I was wondering why "--disable-compile-inits" exists
> at all regardless that according to this document it seems
> that not using "--disable-compile-inits" has only advantages.
>

There are a few reasons why we have it, one of the main ones is that Linux
distro maintainers demand it.

Don't forget that most distros have the URW fonts and the CMaps (and some
the ICC profiles) as separate packages, as they are, or are potentially,
used by other packages (many use, or can use the URW fonts, and at least
Cairo and xpdf use the CMap files). So the preference is to package
Ghostscript without those which, in turn, means not building them into the
binary.



> But what this document does not tell is the following:
>
> The benefit is that the exectuable is essentially self contained,
>> and can always find the resources it needs.
>>
>> The down side is that the executable is considerably bigger,
>> and installer/user customisations are harder.
>>
>> Most distributions opt to disable it because of the exe size,
>> and to allow easier customisation of font substitutions and so on.
>>
>
> I would appreciate it if you could add those pros and cons to
> doc/Make.htm#Precompiled_data
>

I would say that some of those points are mentioned in that section, but I
will flesh out the explanation a bit, and try to make it clearer.


>
> Now I can make a (hopefully) informed decision for SUSE/openSUSE:
>
> I will - at least as a test - no longer use "--disable-compile-inits"
> and see how many complaints I get (I have a personal estimation
> but I don't dare to tell that right now ;-)
>
> My current reasoning is:
>
> I think the benefit of a self contained exectuable that always
> has all its resources (which avoids possible issues)
> outweights
> the drwaback that customisations are no longer easily possible.
>
> I think the considerably bigger executable is meaningless
> because the smaller executable has to load its resources
> one by one from the disk into memory (probably slower)
> so that the overall memory usage when Ghostscript runs
> should be basically the same.
>

Well, I hope you will field all the queries about how to add a custom font
or CIDFont substitution - those are the most common queries we get that
will be affected by the change.

FWIW, I essentially agree with you, but as of now, you stand alone amonst
package maintainers!

Chris

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