Re: RFC: Support for zstd in .deb packages?
Hi Guillem.
I have no real opinion on this.
Guillem Jover - 27.04.18, 07:02:
[…]
> In 2016 Paul Wise mentioned the Zstandard compressor on IRC [Z],
> and I briefly checked it out as a potential candidate for dpkg
> (while also mentioning it to Julian Andres Klode who was considering
> adding lz4 support to apt). At the time it looked like it was not
> worth it (apt went with lz4), so it got parked.
[…]
> The following is a quick run-down of the items from [F], not all
> being important from Debian's perspective, but being for dpkg's:
[…]
> * Format stability: Although it's supposedly frozen now, it has
> changed quite often in recent times. AFAIR it was also mentioned at
> least in the past that the target was mainly real-time data
> streaming, so long-term data storage might not be a priority? Would
> need clarification from upstream I guess.
> * Memory usage: Seemed equivalent or less to current compressors, but
> only as long as equal or less space was desired.
> * Space usage: Seemed worse.
> * (De)compression speed: Seemed better (compared only to the existing
> supported formats) depending on the compression level used.
Regarding technical aspects like these, one more data point: BTRFS
meanwhile offers zstandard compression support. So I bet BTRFS
developers consider it suitable for format stability and long-term data
storage. I am still using lzo on my BTRFS filesystems, so I can not tell
any practical experiences so far.
> (And BTW I do not consider the current support in Ubuntu a deciding
> factor in any way, while it could perhaps fragment the .deb ecosystem,
> that's something for them to deal with IMO; should really start
> adding the vendor to the generated .deb's. :)
If zstd compressed deb´s appear in the wild, it may make sense to at
least implement decompression support.
Thanks,
--
Martin
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