GZip Compressed .dsl

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: GZip Compressed .dsl
started by: vhangell

Posted by vhangell on Aug. 13 2005,05:05

Browser like firefox has the ability to download gzipped compressed html or txt files. this makes downloading (opening) files faster. because it is easier to open compressed files in memory than to wait and download the same uncompressed file.

What if mydsl could download gzipped files like file.dsl.gz/.uci and decompresses them on the target system leaving the file as file.dsl/.uci and then install them. Will this work faster? or is it just plain stupid? Or maybe the mydsl files are already compressed?? Any comments are mostly welcomed.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Aug. 13 2005,07:21

They are already compressed using gzip.

Posted by vhangell on Aug. 13 2005,10:52

oh! that was what i thought... the keyboard just typed by itself. hehehe

thanks for the reply

Posted by clacker on Sep. 10 2005,22:32

That said, might it not be a good idea to use bzip2 to compress them rather than gzip? Take gnu-utils.dsl. If you use gunzip and then compress it using

bzip2 --best gnu-utils.tar

you can see that the difference is about 400K or 4.3%

-rw-rw-r-- 1 dsl staff 9483892 Sep 10 18:20 gnu-utils.dsl
-rw-rw-r-- 1 dsl staff 9074571 Sep 10 18:28 gnu-utils.tar.bz2

bzip2 is already there in dsl. Why can't we use that?

Posted by mikshaw on Sep. 11 2005,01:43

I'd thought about that....bz2 is definitely greater compression.
However, the process is a LOT slower. Piles and piles and piles slower than gz.

Posted by cbagger01 on Sep. 11 2005,06:52

And the slowness doesn't end there.

Try unBzipping a bunch of mydsl extensions at boot time...

You will be glad to trade that extra 5% space for the extra speed.

Posted by mikshaw on Sep. 11 2005,22:12

I wouldn't be disappointed to see bz2 support in the backup/restore system though....as an option.