Re: [kernel.org users] XZ Migration discussion

[Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>]

On 02/13/2010 11:59 AM, Stefan Richter wrote:
> Jean Delvare wrote:
>    
>> On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:07:02 +0100, Willy Tarreau wrote:
>>      
>>> Gzip is well
>>> defined as a standard, it's even described in an RFC and is present
>>> on almost any system (unix or not) now. Any student who wants to take
>>> a look at the kernel will have access to gunzip, even from an old
>>> Solaris 8 workstation or a Windows XP desktop PC.
>>>        
>> Really? I have a Windows XP laptop at hand and it can't read .gz files.
>> If I ask it to try, it tells me I should install WinZip. I also seem to
>> recall that I had to install GNU gzip myself back when I was working on
>> a Solaris workstation (but I might remember badly.)
>>      
> As a side note:  7zip, a very popular and Free archiving tool for
> Windows, supports xz since its version 9 which is currently available as
> a beta.  So, WRT the need to get an extra unarchiver, xz is just as
> accessible to Windows users as gz is.
>    

Can you even unpack a kernel tree on Windows?  There are some files 
(e.g. net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_{ecn,ECN}.c) which conflict on a 
case-preserving filesystem.

-- 
Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to panic.