Re: one idea about reiser4 compress

[Linuxhippy <linuxhippy@web.de>]

Hi Jun!

>Assume you install a distribution on a compressed partition with reiser4.
>you usually do like this --
>
>| CD | Installer with decompression | -> | Re-compress with Reiser4 | HDD |
>
>You dont think decompression -> recompression cycle is wasteful?
>If CD contains compressed files with reiser4 compression format,
>I guess it is possible to do like this --
>
>| CD with reiser4 compressed files | Installer | -> | HDD | 
>
>I mean, this eliminates an overhead of re-compression and make whole 
>isntall process simpler and faster. Maybe you could do install like this --
> # cp -a /mnt/cdrom /mnt/target_hdd
>And this way would be much faster than usual installer today.
>
>How about this idea?
>  
>

To be honest I do not think your idea can be realized in a useful way 
because of:
a.) Every Installer uses its own compression format, most time those 
packages have additional fines in it like install scripts and so on.
b.) Reiser4.1 compression will eb definitivly optimized for speed, 
installer-packages are usually heavily optimized for size.
c.) You would need new API's to archive this. Either through syscalls or 
via reiser's special files.

Conclusion: It would be a major hassle to implement such stuff for next 
to null advantages. There are so many (important) features waiting to be 
implemented ;-)

lg Clemens