Question: Packages.xz and Contents-<arch>.xz

[Hideki Yamane <henrich@debian.or.jp>]

Hi,

 Just a question, is there any reason not provide Packages.xz and
 Contents-<arch>.xz in package repository? I cannot find any information
 about it, so please tell me.

> henrich@hp:/tmp$ du -k Packages.*
> 6052	Packages.bz2
> 5812	Packages.xz
> henrich@hp:/tmp$ time bzip2 -d Packages.bz2 
> 
> real	0m0.999s
> user	0m0.956s
> sys	0m0.020s
> 
> henrich@hp:/tmp$ rm Packages
> henrich@hp:/tmp$ time xz -d Packages.xz 
> 
> real	0m0.565s
> user	0m0.532s
> sys	0m0.032s

> henrich@hp:/tmp$ time gzip -d Packages.gz 
> gzip: Packages already exists; do you wish to overwrite (y or n)? y
> 
> real	0m1.932s
> user	0m0.272s
> sys	0m0.012s

 decompression speed is 
  best  : xz
  second: bz2
  third : gz

 compression is
  best  : xz (-6e)
  second: bz2
  third : gz

 For slow CPU, gzip is good.
 For fast CPU or narrow bandwidth, xz is good.

 I think provide Packages.xz rather than bzip2 is better choice (if we can).


> henrich@hp:/tmp$ du -k Contents-amd64.*
> 24988	Contents-amd64.gz
> 15512	Contents-amd64.xz

 And Contents-<arch>.xz will save disk space and traffic size
 10MB x arch (=14) x (stable + testing + unstable) = 420MB/sync


-- 
Regards,

 Hideki Yamane     henrich @ debian.or.jp/org
 http://wiki.debian.org/HidekiYamane