James Troup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Stephan Kulow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > I think it would be a good idea to teach tar to unpack bzip2 files > > > via the -z option, just as if it would be gzip. Alternativly one > > > could teach gzip to use bzip2 for .bz2 archives or teach dpkg to > > > distinguish between the two. > > > > > > The main advantage would be that one could use tar.bz2 for deb > > > packages without altering dpkg and thereby save a lot of space. > > > > > > Whats the general opinion about this and is maybe somebody already > > > working on it? > > > > I think, you could save some space, but the installation time of > > Debian would increase dramaticly. > > And Debian would become unviable on low memory machines - bzip2 hogs > memory and is deadly slow compared to gzip - and, what's more, you > wouldn't actually see a significant benefit on 90% of the debs because > they are not the size where bzip2's savings really kick in. So for > the vast majority of cases you'd do nothing but slow installation down > and increase the already heavy cost in memory of installation.
I don't want to force anybody or anything to use bzip2, but it would be nice if it wouldn't make a difference. Some packages would greatly benefit from it, some wouldn't. Why not use bzip2 for packages which benefit greatly. The base system and its packages must stay (at least partly) in gziped form anyway, because otherwise one couldnt update anymore. Also memory shouldn't be a problem, packages like X take large amounts of memory, so only people having "large" amounts (8 MB +) would install it (or they are used to waiting for swap). Those large Packages would benefit from bzip2 and people with not enough ram to run bzip2 will hardly use them. Also for some source packages it would be nice to have them in bzip2 format. Agsin, why shouldn't it be possible to use bzip2 for them? As long as we have -z and -I every programm must distinguish between gzip and bzip2 and many programms dont. When tar or gzip automatically uses the right one it doesn't matter what one uses. One could use both depending on what fits best. One could tell dpkg-buildpackage to use bzip2 for packages where bzip2 brings a large size decrease and gzip otherwise, or one could just use it for packages where the upstream Source is in bzip2 format. > > BTW: tar can handle bz2 files. you can use > > --use-compress-program=bzip2. > > or the -I option with tar (>= 1.12-3). One would have to distinguish between the both (-z and -I) which makes things more complicated. May the Source be with you. Mrvn -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]