Re: deb + tar + bzip2 suggestion
Stephan Kulow <coolo@itm.mu-luebeck.de> 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.
> BTW: tar can handle bz2 files. you can use
> --use-compress-program=bzip2.
or the -I option with tar (>= 1.12-3).
--
James
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