Re: why apt/dpkg not using bzip2
On Sun, Sep 03, 2000 at 11:49:32PM -0300, Nicol?s Lichtmaier wrote:
> > > > > Speed reasons - gzip is significantly faster than bzip2, which matters
> > > > > for old ix86 (x=3,4) and m68k machines which run Debian.
> > > >
> > > > bzip2 also uses more memory which can be an issue with lowmemory
> > > > systems.
> > >
> > > I had a 486 with 8Mb and with `bzip2 -s' I could use bzipped packages
> > > perfectly... are we talking about 4 Mb mechines?
> > Do you realize how much ram dpkg itself already takes up? Add that to
> > bzip2 and you are definitely swapping, even with 8 megs of RAM. Heck,
> > doing this, and you need 16megs *free* physical memory just to keep from
> > swapping. As for 4 meg machines, the current gzip setup is almost
> > unbearable just for that (believe me, I have an 8 meg system, and I don't
> > want to even imagine a 4 meg system trying to handle dpkg, much less
> > dpkg+bzip2).
>
> Uhm.. you are right. But it could still be used for Packages.gz and for the
> source package. Many packages are now being packaged in bz2 upstream (eg.
> lftp, one of mine)...
For Sources and Packages that's fine, IMO, but your assertion about
source packages is a little misleading. apt-get source for gcc and
glibc[1]. Check the tarballs internally. You'll notice they are .tar.bz2.
This is done with little loss of space over straight .bz2. A new format
and hacking is not needed for you to use this already (packages doing this
need to Build-Depend on bzip2).
Ben
[1]: Also check openldap, shadow and pam for the same style setups. Yes,
it's sort of a hack, but it's a clean hack and the system provides much
more than a way to package up .bz2 tarballs.
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/ Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \
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