1,440 symbolic links

[Dick Repasky <rrepasky at lack dot ucs dot indiana dot edu>]

The tree /etc/X11/xserver contains 720 symbolic links. The vast majority 
of of them are locale specific and point to the directory 
/etc/X11/xserver/C.  The only thing in /etc/X11/xserver/C is a tree called
print.

The tree /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xserver seems to be identical to 
/etc/X11/xserver.

My question is: can I get rid of all those symbolic links?  The reason 
that I ask is that I'm using Fergus' instructions for building a CD from 
which cygwin can be run 
(http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-07/msg01117.html).  Because ISO-9660 
file system does not support symbolic links, the technique for handling 
them is to create copies of everything that is symbolically linked.  For 
/etc/X11/xserver that means about 998 MB of disk on an ntfs file system 
with a respectable blocking factor. /usr/X11R6/lib/xserver also takes up 
that much space.  My hope is that X has a respectable default, something 
like if localization file can't be read, use /etc/X11/xserver/C (or 
/usr/X11R6/lib/xserver/C). Or, maybe /etc/X11/xserver/C/print really is 
for printing (the tree seems to contain printer specs), and if I don't 
want to print, I can get rid of it all.

I've tried poking around at X.org, but can't seem to find documenation 
tha's appropriate.  I'd be grateful for any of the following:

  - simple answer such as "delete with impunity - it doesn't matter"
  - point me to appropriate documentation
  - point me to appropriate sections of the source code.

Thanks,

Dick

-----------------

Dick Repasky
Bioinformatics Support
UITS Cubicle 101.08
Indiana University
USA

rrepasky@indiana.edu