svn commit: r264027 - in head: release share/man/man7

[Nikolai Lifanov]

On 04/02/14 11:51, Glen Barber wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 02, 2014 at 10:40:22AM -0500, Brooks Davis wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 10:41:27PM +0000, Glen Barber wrote:
>>> Author: gjb
>>> Date: Tue Apr  1 22:41:26 2014
>>> New Revision: 264027
>>> URL: http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/264027
>>>
>>> Log:
>>>   Add a new release build variable, WITH_COMPRESSED_IMAGES.
>>>   
>>>   When set to a non-empty value, the installation medium is
>>>   compressed with gzip(1) as part of the 'install' target in
>>>   the release/ directory.
>>>   
>>>   With gzip(1) compression, downloadable image are reduced in
>>>   size quite significantly.  Build test against head at 263927
>>>   shows the following:
>>>   
>>>    bootonly.iso:		64% smaller
>>>    disc1.iso:		44% smaller
>>>    memstick.img:		47% smaller
>>>    mini-memstick.img:	65% smaller
>>>    dvd1.iso:		untested
>>>   
>>>   This option is off by default, I would eventually like to
>>>   turn it on by default, and remove the '-k' flag to gzip(1)
>>>   so only compressed images are published on FTP.
>>
>> I'd recommend testing xz compression as well.  With UFS images of a full
>> world the savings vs gzip are significant (more than 30% IIRC, but it's
>> need more than a year since I checked so I'm a bit unsure of the exact
>> numbers).
>>
> 
> delphij also brought this up.
> 
> I have concerns with xz(1), since there was mention in IRC that Windows
> users may have problems decompressing xz-compressed images.  So, gzip(1)
> is used because it seems to be the more commonly-supported archive
> mechanisms.
> 
> The benefit of xz(1) over gzip(1) was only 50M-ish.
> 
>   -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   601M Mar 28 20:18 disc1.iso
>   -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   381M Mar 28 20:18 disc1.iso.bz2
>   -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   392M Mar 28 20:18 disc1.iso.gz
>   -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   348M Mar 28 20:18 disc1.iso.xz
> 
> Glen
> 

How about 7zip (Windows program, not file format)? What would a Windows
user use that can decompress gzip and not xz? It was a problem around
~2007, but xz support is no longer rare or exotic.

- Nikolai Lifanov