On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 01:51:50PM -0400, Michael Wiktowy wrote:
Hi,
I just read
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/static/suse11.html where is
mentions that OpenSuSe 11 went with a different compression algorithm
for their rpms (LZMA instead of bz2) and have a few questions:
1) While every distro seems to be coming together on a package
management GUI (PackageKit), does this represent a splintering of
package formats? or is rpm compression algorithm agnostic? Is there
any hope that the various rpm development will start pulling in the
same direction?
Yes. We already have the LZMA bits in the upstream RPM for a while. So
the support for the LZMA payload compression will occur as soon as the
head RPM lands in rawhide. Support for old gz/bz2 payload remains, so
no regressions will be introduced.
2) LZMA appears to have some good characteristics for installation
rpms (tighter compression, 50% decompression time ... at least as
implemented by 7zip ref:
http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf4.php ). Is Fedora
planing to follow this switch (or has it already and not advertised it
as a prominent feature) or are there other considerations preventing
that (patent issues?, not suitable for delta rpms?, 200% compression
time)?
Agreed, LZMA shows amazing compression results better that bzip2 with
faster decompression than bz2 in most cases. OTOH it consumes more
memory and compression takes longer, but seems to be feasible with the
-7 compression level (default).
The exact timing for the new rpm release is not clear yet, but there
would be a need of mass rebuild to fully take advantage of the new
compression.
/Mike
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