Re: Smaller compressed kernel source tarballs?

[Phillip Susi <psusi@cfl.rr.com>]

David Lang wrote:
> I just had what's probably a silly thought.
> 
> as an alturnative to useing tar, what about useing a git pack?
> 
> create a git archive with no history, just the current files, and then 
> pack it with agressive delta options.
> 

Isn't that what a patch.gz is?  Diff generates the deltas and then they 
are compressed.  Can't get much simpler or better than that.

> since git uses compression on the result anyway it's unlikly to be much 
> worse then a tarball, and since it can use deltas across files it may 
> even be better (potentially enough better to cover the cost of 
> downloading the git binaries)
> 
> this would be especially effective once git adds a 'shallow clone' 
> capability to then take the snapshot pack and extend it (either forward 
> or backward as requested by the user), but may be worth doing even 
> without this.
> 
> thoughts?
> 
> David Lang