Different extension types

Forum: myDSL Extensions (deprecated)
Topic: Different extension types
started by: damianiw

Posted by damianiw on July 18 2005,13:23

Can someone briefly explain the different types of mydsl extensions and the differences ?

I know of

.tar.gz
.dsl
.uci (What's a UCI ?)

Posted by adssse on July 18 2005,16:09

In computing, the tar file format is a type of archive file format: the Tape ARchive format. These files are produced by the Unix command tar. It is used widely to archive and unarchive files while preserving file system information such as user and group permissions, dates, and directory structures. The gz is the compression aspect of it.

.dsl files are collections of files that have been tarred & gzipped (*.tar.gz) and then renamed *.dsl

.uci - (Universal Compressed ISO - extensions in .uci format mount as a separate filesystem to save RAM space)

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on July 18 2005,19:37

Green extensions named *.tar.gz are safer to use on low ram systems, because they only write to /home and /opt, which are already writable.

Yellow and red extensions are named .dsl, because they have to write to more areas of the filesystem, and any part of the filesystem that is to be written to must be unpacked to ram. In other words, they can eat a lot more ram.

.uci extensions are compressed cloop files that are mounted rather than unpacked. These are the safest extensions to use on low ram systems, because they use almost no ram, since they usually exist on a physical drive, and are mounted, rather than unpacked into ram.

All .ucis as well as system extensions, like gnu-utils are rated blue.

Adding this explanation to the Docs.

-J.P.

Posted by damianiw on July 18 2005,20:52

Thanks,

should uci's show in the mydsl optional menu ? if I put them in the optional folder

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on July 18 2005,21:11

no.

.uci's should be in the root of the partition where they will be loaded automatically.

-J.P.

Posted by mgmont on July 19 2005,13:04

Thanks for the great explanations, SaidunLeashed. That has cleared up some things for me. I was wondering why the .uci files would not show up when put in the optional directory. Now I know. That is why open office starts so fast in my laptop. It is mounted like a file system. I am using a CF to IDE adapter so it comes up almost like it was already in ram. This is great!