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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!udel!louie!ori.cis.udel.edu!sgray From: sgray@ori.cis.udel.edu (Scott C. Gray) Subject: Re: Compressing file system ? Message-ID: <1993Aug6.200839.9675@udel.edu> Sender: usenet@udel.edu (USENET News Service) Nntp-Posting-Host: ori.cis.udel.edu Organization: University of Delaware, Newark References: <23rh55$ct@encap.Hanse.DE> <23tr2j$3tt@europa.eng.gtefsd.com> <23tsn3$7e@Germany.EU.net> Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 20:08:39 GMT Lines: 40 In article <23tsn3$7e@Germany.EU.net> bs@Germany.EU.net (Bernard Steiner) writes: > > >BTW the three least often used (i.e. opened for execution) files are >/386bsd, /sbin/init and /sbin/fsck > >I'm sure you agree you wouldn't want them compressed... Actually, Linux's boot image is a self-extracting compressed file, and to give you an idea, my boot image (with networking, and assundry (sp?)) drivers is about 270K compressed. When you start getting into shared libraries and shared executables (depending on paging methods), you are right that programs like init and fsck shouldn't be compressed. > >Note: I think the idea of an optional compressing filesystem is OK, I just see >more potential problems than possible benefits. > I don't know...there are some really interesting aspects of compressed filesystems, or every a filesystem that is *.Z or *.gz aware (i.e. you can treat them as if they were uncompressed). Or imagine being able to cd into a tar file. Or a tar.Z file. This won't happen, but it is an interesting idea. Considering that a large number of the people running 386bsd and Linux are running on the machine by themselves, compression could prove a worthwhile endeavor. For example, on my 486DX-50Mhz, my disk performance actually increased while using Stacker under DOS with medium sized files. This is because the read time of the uncompressed file outweighed the decompression time by the CPU. I realize things will be different under a multi- tasking/user system, but I really think it would benifit most people. Just my $0.02. scott