Tips to obtain a very small static elinks binary
Prev | Chapter 1. Getting ELinks up and running | Next

## Tips to obtain a very small static elinks binary

Tips to obtain a very small static elinks binary suitable for mini distributions

Remove config.cache (previous CC may be cached):

    $ rm config.cache

Use dietlibc (http://www.fefe.de/dietlibc/) or similar stuff (uClibc, …):

    $ export CC='diet -Os gcc'

Use compilers flags to optimize for size:

    $ export CFLAGS='-s -fno-inline -nostdinc -fomit-frame-pointer'

Note that if you don't use dietlibc, you definitively want to add `-Os` or `-O2` to `CFLAGS`; GCC 2.95 does not know `-Os`, and some say `-O2` gives smaller executables even for GCC 3.x.

### Warning

If you use these `CFLAGS` on Cygwin and you get unresolved symbols (`htons` and suite in particular), try removing `-fno-inline` parameter.

Disable some compile-time options:

    $ ./configure --disable-ipv6 --disable-backtrace --disable-nls \
      --enable-fastmem --without-zlib --without-bzlib --disable-xbel \
      --without-lua --without-gnutls --without-openssl --without-x \
      --enable-small --without-spidermonkey --without-gpm

You can disable bookmarks, globhist and more, too, if you want to.

### Notes

- —disable-backtrace disables internal backtrace code.
- —disable-nls disables i18n support.
- —enable-fastmem disables internal `malloc()` debugging and use `alloca()` wherever possible.
- —enable-small forces to remove some text descriptions in options and keybind stuff (regain 30Kb).

Dependencies over external libs must be removed using the related configure options:

Option | Description
--- | ---
—without-zlib | removes libz dependency (compression)
—without-bzlib | removes libbz2 dependency (compression)
—disable-xbel | removes expat dependency (XBEL bookmarks support)
—without-lua | removes liblua dependency (Lua scripting)
—without-gnutls | removes libtls dependency (SSL support)
—without-openssl | removes libssl dependency (SSL support)
—without-x | removes libx11 dependency (restoring terminal title)
—without-spidermonkey | removes libjs dependency (JavaScript)
—without-gpm | removes libgpm dependency (mouse/console)

It seems GCC 2.95.x do not generate as small binaries as GCC 3.2.x with same flags.

You can use an executable compressor like UPX http://upx.sourceforge.net/.

Here are some results using gcc 2.95.3, dietlibc-0.23, and previous flags:

    me$ ls -l src/elinks
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 zas      users      495100 Oct 20 15:53 src/elinks
    me$ upx --best src/elinks
    me$ ls -l src/elinks
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 zas      users      217946 Oct 20 15:53 src/elinks

Whow ! Around 200kb :)

### Details about the `—enable-small` configure option effects:

- it disables long descriptions of options;
- it disables textual descriptions of keybinding options;
- it reduces size of some HTTP errors messages;
- it disables fastfind feature, reducing performance, but also reducing a lot memory usage, and a bit the executable size.

Prev | Up | Next
Further reading | Home | ECMAScript support?!