georgy7 / build-with-musl

Small static executables.

Why Musl?

Two reasons.

1. Build once, run everywhere (all Linux distros). Executables smaller, than with glibc.
2. Musl has the very permissive MIT license.

---

You may like the collection of single file libs.

Why you shouldn't use it:

You can not statically link with X11, OpenGL, GTK anyway. That's why I do not recommend this method for anything related to GUI.

You probably heard about FFI. It's not an option for a single file portable app. It requires building an interface layer ("helper" binary) on a user platform.

For cross-platform desktop GUI application, IMO, it's much easier to use JVM (Swing/JOGL/LWJGL), probably .Net, Python (Tkinter included). Or you can use a standard set of libraries with Flatpak or Snap. Both platforms allow you to distribute closed-source software.

See also: How to create near portable Linux binaries (C++)

Single C file

Regular build

clang -std=c11 hello.c --static -o hello-clang
clang -std=c11 hello.c -o hello-clang-dynamic
gcc -std=c11 hello.c --static -o hello-gcc
gcc -std=c11 hello.c -o hello-gcc-dynamic

That's what I got on my 64-bit Ubuntu system:

Name	Size (KB)	Works on Tiny Core Linux?
hello-clang	887.4	YES
hello-clang-dynamic	8.5	panic: standard_init_linux.go:178
hello-gcc	887.3	YES
hello-gcc-dynamic	8.4	panic: standard_init_linux.go:178
hello-musl	120.5	YES
hello-musl-release (strip-all)	17.2	YES

1/7 by size (strip-all is a cheating, I suppose)! So, how to get it?

Step 1. Install Docker.

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install docker.io

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Then relogin.

Step 2. Download Alpine Linux + Clang

Clone this git repository. Go to its directory. Then:

docker build --tag clangmusl ClangMusl

You can browse it now (print exit to exit):

docker run --rm -it clangmusl

Step 3. Build hello.c

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it clangmusl /workDir/build_single.sh hello.c hello-musl

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it clangmusl /workDir/build_single_release.sh \
hello.c hello-musl-release

"$(pwd)" means the current host directory.

Step 4. Test on other distros.

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it tatsushid/tinycore:8.0-x86_64 /workDir/hello-musl
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:glibc /workDir/hello-musl
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:musl /workDir/hello-musl
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:uclibc /workDir/hello-musl
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it hello-world /workDir/hello-musl
Hi!

./hello-musl 
Hi!

file hello-musl
hello-musl: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, not stripped

And now, the stripped version:

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it tatsushid/tinycore:8.0-x86_64 /workDir/hello-musl-release
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:glibc /workDir/hello-musl-release
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:musl /workDir/hello-musl-release
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:uclibc /workDir/hello-musl-release
Hi!

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it hello-world /workDir/hello-musl-release
Hi!

./hello-musl-release
Hi!

file hello-musl-release
hello-musl-release: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, stripped

Building Nim script

docker pull nimlang/nim:1.4.2-alpine

docker run --rm -v "`pwd`":/workDir -w /workDir \
    nimlang/nim:1.4.2-alpine nim c \
    -d:release --opt:size --passL:-static hello2.nim

Test it on various distros.

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it tatsushid/tinycore:8.0-x86_64 /workDir/hello2
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:glibc /workDir/hello2
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:musl /workDir/hello2
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:uclibc /workDir/hello2
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it hello-world /workDir/hello2
./hello2

And the size of this executable is

wc --bytes hello2
160352 hello2

md5sum hello2
46b35faf93ed264f21f2bd14fe943dbe  hello2

strip hello2
wc --bytes hello2
35000

md5sum hello2
4a6d882ec8c84e9537e203089a7dc017  hello2

file hello2
hello2: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, stripped

ldd hello2
	statically linked

A bit more complex example.

docker run --rm -v "`pwd`":/workDir -w /workDir \
    nimlang/nim:1.4.2-alpine nim c --threads:on \
    -d:release --opt:size --passL:-static race.nim

wc --bytes race
275424 race

file race
race: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, with debug_info, not stripped

ldd race
	statically linked

md5sum race
1934b9430e1374788e725e5c07fba0f8  race


strip race

wc --bytes race
51456 race

file race
race: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, stripped

ldd race
	statically linked

md5sum race
22e90027056a63c20500c61d3a7e0674  race

./race
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it tatsushid/tinycore:8.0-x86_64 /workDir/race
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:glibc /workDir/race
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:musl /workDir/race
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/workDir -it busybox:uclibc /workDir/race

Rust, Go

Rust supports musl out of the box.

Go runtime does not depend on libc.