xz packages

x33a · 2011-09-17 18:02:16

I was just seeing how many packages i have in my pacman cache, and found that most packages have been switched to .tar.xz format.

But, some haven't and the most interesting was

xz-5.0.3-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz

So, any reason why some packages are still using .tar.gz instead, since it's been about 18 months since the switch began.

karol · 2011-09-17 18:12:52

If you're running pacman pre-3.3 you need *.pkg.tar or *.pkg.tar.gz packages.
http://projects.archlinux.org/pacman.gi … ?id=v3.3.0

xz archive format supported for packages and databases

The current pacman and some other packages are still kept as *.pkg.tar.gz.
http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/ … 00234.html

Last edited by karol (2011-09-17 18:24:51)

Awebb · 2011-09-17 18:44:41

Sounds like a henn-egg problem. I never thought about this, but it might be fatal in one or the other recovery situation to have xz packed as .xz :-D

taylorchu · 2011-09-17 18:51:13

it would be awesome if all packages and repo databases are xz-compressed

karol · 2011-09-17 18:52:59

taylorchu wrote:

it would be awesome if all packages and repo databases are xz-compressed

Why?

taylorchu · 2011-09-17 19:01:34

why?
although xz takes more time to decompress, it has much better compress ratio. Therefore pacman -Syy will be faster.

karol · 2011-09-17 19:09:45

taylorchu wrote:

why?
although xz takes more time to decompress, it has much better compress ratio. Therefore pacman -Syy will be faster.

For the biggest db - community.db - it's a difference of 455K for gzip v. 328K for xz.
If you're using Arch, you should be updating regularly so some 200K more for dbs shouldn't matter.

falconindy · 2011-09-17 19:33:04

Awebb wrote:

Sounds like a henn-egg problem. I never thought about this, but it might be fatal in one or the other recovery situation to have xz packed as .xz :-D

This. xz and pacman are kept in gzip form to provide clean upgrade paths.

taylorchu · 2011-09-17 23:03:29

@karol
100kb out of 400kb is 25%. It is about 2-3 secs waiting time for laptop wireless.

@falconindy

This. xz and pacman are kept in gzip form to provide clean upgrade paths.

how does that work?

Allan · 2011-09-17 23:22:08

Old installs do not have xz support in libarchive. So there are sets of packages that need to be kept as gzip files if we want to have people able to upgrade from them.

taylorchu · 2011-09-17 23:34:32

so for this reason, I purpose "arch deadline" (run pacman -Syu by 2011/12/31 23:59:59)
2012 will be the year of xz-compressed arch.

karol · 2011-09-17 23:40:35

taylorchu wrote:

so for this reason, I purpose "arch deadline" (run pacman -Syu by 2011/12/31 23:59:59)
2012 will be the year of xz-compressed arch.

This is up to the devs, they should know if there's a usecase why somebody would not update for a long time.

Again, If you update regularly, you download many MBs of packages, 200K doesn't make a difference.

x33a · 2011-09-18 06:11:10

Hmm.. since arch is rolling release, most people update it quite regularly. If someone really updates arch after a long time, they'll likely have a lot of headache. For how long do the devs intend to keep these few critical packages in .tar.gz format? Not that it matters much, but there should be a rationale for the decisions.

This since the arch devs are usually the first ones to set the precedence, when it comes to adopting newer version of software or newer software themselves, as seen in the case of python3, gnome3 etc.

Allan · 2011-09-18 06:44:07

Well... lets say a rough guideline is keeping them until at least both the current and previous installer versions have packages that support this. So maybe after the next installer release.

toofishes · 2011-09-18 22:46:01

Really, we need no rationale. We can do what we want. I have no problem with them always being gzip-compressed, and this is one of the least important things we need to worry about.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-17 18:02:16

xz packages

#2 2011-09-17 18:12:52

Re: xz packages

#3 2011-09-17 18:44:41

Re: xz packages

#4 2011-09-17 18:51:13

Re: xz packages

#5 2011-09-17 18:52:59

Re: xz packages

#6 2011-09-17 19:01:34

Re: xz packages

#7 2011-09-17 19:09:45

Re: xz packages

#8 2011-09-17 19:33:04

Re: xz packages

#9 2011-09-17 23:03:29

Re: xz packages

#10 2011-09-17 23:22:08

Re: xz packages

#11 2011-09-17 23:34:32

Re: xz packages

#12 2011-09-17 23:40:35

Re: xz packages

#13 2011-09-18 06:11:10

Re: xz packages

#14 2011-09-18 06:44:07

Re: xz packages

#15 2011-09-18 22:46:01

Re: xz packages

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