From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261246AbVFNBMJ (ORCPT ); Mon, 13 Jun 2005 21:12:09 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261284AbVFNBMJ (ORCPT ); Mon, 13 Jun 2005 21:12:09 -0400 Received: from www.tuxrocks.com ([64.62.190.123]:34310 "EHLO tuxrocks.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261246AbVFNBMD (ORCPT ); Mon, 13 Jun 2005 21:12:03 -0400 Message-ID: <42AE3C91.4090904@tuxrocks.com> Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:10:25 -0600 From: Frank Sorenson User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Christian Leber CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, akpm@osdl.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] lzma support: lzma compressed kernel image References: <20050607214128.GB2645@core.home> <20050612223150.GA26370@core.home> In-Reply-To: <20050612223150.GA26370@core.home> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.91.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Christian Leber wrote: > Building the lzma tool cut and paste style: > > mkdir build-lzma > wget http://www.7-zip.org/dl/lzma417.tar.bz2 > tar xjf lzma417.tar.bz2 > cd SRC/7zip/Compress/LZMA_Alone/ > make > cp lzma ../../../../../ > cd ../../../../../ Other than the coding style issues which need to be addressed, the patches appear to work as advertised. lzma reduced my kernel by approximately 25%, so I'd say it looks promising. I do have a gripe about the need for the external lzma program when building the kernel. gzip can reasonably be expected to be on people's systems, but lzma is (currently, at least) rather obscure, and isn't likely to be on very many systems. I think one or more of the following ought to happen: - - Modify the help text in the Kconfig option to show people how to obtain, compile, and install lzma (and warn them they'll need to install it). - - Detect that the lzma application isn't present, and fall back to gzip (with a warning) if lzma fails. - - If we can embed the decompressor into the boot-time kernel, can't we put a compressor into the kernel source, and avoid the need for the external program? - - ... Frank - -- Frank Sorenson - KD7TZK Systems Manager, Computer Science Department Brigham Young University frank@tuxrocks.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCrjyRaI0dwg4A47wRAk3PAKCZiMzdEP1UefLN3ETO/c64zrjedACfaz+T RSAM/qgCehDj2Gs6e03T3RY= =oIaY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----