Re: Linux Kernel Source Compression

H. Peter Anvin
2006-05-22T18:58:57Z

Followup to: <200605212003.32063.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk>
By author: Alistair John Strachan <s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Somebody needs to make lzma userspace tools (like p7zip) faster, not crash,
> and behave like a regular UNIX program. Then we need a patch to GNU tar to
> emerge, and for it to persist for at least 4 years. Then maybe people will
> adopt this format..
>

The patch to GNU tar isn't necessary. If the "not crash, and behave
like a regular UNIX program" can be satisfied, I'd be happy to support
7zip/lzma on kernel.org. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell:

a) right now the standard encapsulation format for LZMA is 7zip, which
only comes in the form of hideously ugly code. lzma-tools are
cleaner, but incompatible.

b) Even lzma-tools relies on a shell script to behave like a Unix
program.

Personally, I would like to suggest adding LZMA capability to gzip.
The gzip format already has support for multiple compression formats.

-hpa