Tclkit Lite is a version of Tclkit which no longer uses the Metakit library for Tcl (called Mk4tcl and coded in C++). It currently can only read and run starkits and starpacks, not create or modify them (but SDX can! read on...).
Tclkit Lite can be considerably smaller than Tclkit on Unix-type systems. Since there is no dependency on C++, it will also be more portable.
Tclkit Lite's performance is roughly on par with Tclkit. Depending on actual usage patterns, VFS access is between 2x faster and 2x slower than a standard Tclkit.
Building Tclkit Lite
The preferred way to build Tclkit Lite as of Nov 2006 is with the kitgen build system.
Builds using the "genkit" script are deprecated (i.e. "sh genkit [BDE] lite").
Creating Starkits
Since Tclkit Lite only has a MK file reader, no commit logic, it cannot easily be used to modify existing starkits.
However ... SDX has been adjusted to use the new "vfs::m2m" driver which is in every Tclkit Lite build starting Nov 2006. This means that SDX's "wrap", "unwrap", and "mkinfo" also work when used from Tclkit Lite.