[Announce] Squashfs 2.1 released (compressed filesystem)

[Announce] Squashfs 2.1 released (compressed filesystem)

[Phillip Lougher]

Hi all,

I'm pleased to announce the release of Squashfs 2.1.  This release 
introduces indexed directories which considerably speed up directory 
lookup (ls, find, etc.) for directories which are greater than 8K in 
size.  All directories are now also sorted alphabetically which further 
speeds up directory lookup.

Many smaller improvements have also been made in this release, and there 
are, for the first time, the results of some tests of Squashfs lookup 
and I/O performance against Zisofs, Cloop, and CRAMFS.

For further details please go to the project page 
http://squashfs.sourceforge.net.

Regards

Phillip Lougher

Re: [Announce] Squashfs 2.1 released (compressed filesystem)

[Greg KH]

On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 08:08:37PM +0000, Phillip Lougher wrote:
> 
> I'm pleased to announce the release of Squashfs 2.1.

Are you going to submit this fs for inclusion in the main kernel tree?
I'm getting tired of maintaining it as part of the Gentoo kernel patch
set :)

(Gentoo uses it for their LiveCD images)

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: [Announce] Squashfs 2.1 released (compressed filesystem)

[Phillip Lougher]

Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 08:08:37PM +0000, Phillip Lougher wrote:
> 
>>I'm pleased to announce the release of Squashfs 2.1.
> 
> 
> Are you going to submit this fs for inclusion in the main kernel tree?
> I'm getting tired of maintaining it as part of the Gentoo kernel patch
> set :)

Good question...  When I originally released Squashfs (Oct 2002) the 2.5 
kernel had just gone into the feature freeze and I was waiting for the 
unfreeze that would happen when 2.7 arrived.  As the official stance on 
additions to 2.6 has been relaxed I have thought about submitting it.

I need to tidy up the code a bit before I submit it to the merciless 
scrutiny of LKML :-)  Nothing bad (I hope) but there's lots of long 
lines and I do know LKML'mers like 80 columns.

I'm planning on adding ea/acl support (people have been asking for 
them), I can't decide whether to submit it now or wait until I've 
finished them.  Suggestions and advice would be welcome.

Slightly off topic, I've noticed you're the kernel maintainer for 
Gentoo.  You mentioned somewhere you're down to 4 kernel patches, 
including Squashfs? :) A lot of people/projects are now using Squashfs 
and it would help a lot of people (and me) if it did get into the 
kernel.  Plus it would be a nice thing for me anyway to have finally got 
it included.

Regards

Phillip

Re: [Announce] Squashfs 2.1 released (compressed filesystem)

[Greg KH]

On Sat, Dec 11, 2004 at 05:15:11AM +0000, Phillip Lougher wrote:
> Greg KH wrote:
> >On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 08:08:37PM +0000, Phillip Lougher wrote:
> >
> >>I'm pleased to announce the release of Squashfs 2.1.
> >
> >
> >Are you going to submit this fs for inclusion in the main kernel tree?
> >I'm getting tired of maintaining it as part of the Gentoo kernel patch
> >set :)
> 
> Good question...  When I originally released Squashfs (Oct 2002) the 2.5 
> kernel had just gone into the feature freeze and I was waiting for the 
> unfreeze that would happen when 2.7 arrived.  As the official stance on 
> additions to 2.6 has been relaxed I have thought about submitting it.
> 
> I need to tidy up the code a bit before I submit it to the merciless 
> scrutiny of LKML :-)  Nothing bad (I hope) but there's lots of long 
> lines and I do know LKML'mers like 80 columns.
> 
> I'm planning on adding ea/acl support (people have been asking for 
> them), I can't decide whether to submit it now or wait until I've 
> finished them.  Suggestions and advice would be welcome.

Submit it now, it's self contained (doesn't patch anything outside it's
own directory), and is useful in it's current state for a lot of people.

> Slightly off topic, I've noticed you're the kernel maintainer for 
> Gentoo.  You mentioned somewhere you're down to 4 kernel patches, 
> including Squashfs? :)

Yes, squashfs is one of the four non-bugfix patches in the Gentoo kernel
2.6 kernel package.  

For those who are interested, the other three are:
	- fbsplash, the "next-gen" version of bootsplash.  No more image
	  decoders in kernelspace (compared to bootsplash), and a few
	  more features.
	- speakup, a driver package for visually-impaired users.
	- vesafb-tng, a "next-gen" version of vesafb-tng.
	- inotify.

Ok, there are now 5 patches, I forgot we addeed inotify recently to make
the Gnome developers happy.

> A lot of people/projects are now using Squashfs and it would help a
> lot of people (and me) if it did get into the kernel.  Plus it would
> be a nice thing for me anyway to have finally got it included.

I agree, it would also reduce your workload of keeping an
out-of-the-kernel fs patchset.

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: [Announce] Squashfs 2.1 released (compressed filesystem)

[Willy Tarreau]

Hi Phillip,

> Many smaller improvements have also been made in this release, and there 
> are, for the first time, the results of some tests of Squashfs lookup 
> and I/O performance against Zisofs, Cloop, and CRAMFS.

I've checked you tests, numbers are appealing :-)

BTW, you need to apply the following patch to build mksquashfs with gcc < 3.

Thanks for still improving this great FS !
Willy

--- squashfs2.1/squashfs-tools/mksquashfs.c.orig	Sun Dec 12 12:10:35 2004
+++ squashfs2.1/squashfs-tools/mksquashfs.c	Sun Dec 12 12:14:55 2004
@@ -526,11 +526,10 @@
 	else if(type == SQUASHFS_LDIR_TYPE) {
 		int i;
 		unsigned char *p;
+		squashfs_ldir_inode_header *dir = &inode_header.ldir, *inodep;
 
 		if(byte_size >= 1 << 27)
 			BAD_ERROR("directory greater than 2^27-1 bytes!\n");
-
-		squashfs_ldir_inode_header *dir = &inode_header.ldir, *inodep;
 
 		inode = get_inode(sizeof(*dir) + i_size);
 		inodep = (squashfs_ldir_inode_header *) inode;

Re: [Announce] Squashfs 2.1 released (compressed filesystem)

[Phillip Lougher]

Willy Tarreau wrote:

> I've checked you tests, numbers are appealing :-)
> 
> BTW, you need to apply the following patch to build mksquashfs with gcc < 3.
> 
> Thanks for still improving this great FS !
> Willy

Hi

Thanks for your comments and thanks for the patch.  I also received 
reports that the kernel patches didn't build with gcc < 3.  This is 
because I used unamed structures and unions which are not supported by 
gcc < 3.  The "fun" of dealing with all the differing gcc versions in 
use out there :-)  I'll do another release with the code changes.

Phillip