>> place.  It certainly isn't what NetBSD comes like, for reasons
>> of which one was very well demonstrated by this incident.
>
>yes it isn't default but it is in my own compiled version. it saves a lot
>of RAM

How much is really saved at any given instant in time?  How much would it
cost to simply buy that much more RAM, as opposed the value of your time
for setting the system up this way (and now having to conduct a rescue
operation)?  Or is upgrading the system's memory simply not an option?
How much does the memory savings actually improve performance (i.e., is it
a ``snappy vs. sluggish'' type of thing, or is it a matter of the system
thrashing badly during common operations if you don't conserve as much RAM
as possible?)

Did you actually measure the memory usage and/or performance impact of
using shared libraries, or are you basing this on the size of the
executables?  (The reason that I ask is that executables are loaded by
memory mapping the files, as I understand it, and then the code is
demand-paged.  As such, it's possible that not much of the executable ever
gets paged in, even if its file is huge.)


Of course the value of it all is subjective, but....


  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu