Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Sukneet Basuta <sukneet AT gmail.com>]

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 11:27 PM, flux <flux AT sourcemage.org> wrote:
> Where exactly would you replace bzip2 and/or gzip by xz? If for upstream
> sources, I think it depends on what upstream is doing. If upstream drops
> the others for xz, obviously we'd do that. If they're just providing an
> additional download option, that doesn't necessetate that we switch
> anything on our end (though it also doesn't prevent us from doing it). I
> think really it will come down to a matter of personal choice. The same
> used to be the case between gzip and bzip2. xz is just a new player to
> the game, and there's no clear absolute winner that will make literally
> everyone happy. Don't forget, there are yet other (at least
> semi-)popular choices as well (such as lzo).
>
> I'm not against xz personally (though compressing with it does seem to
> take considerably longer, so that would be a factor when creating, say,
> install logs), but I know that I don't speak for everyone, and no one
> really does. As long as we have choice, I think it can work out nicely.

You make some good points. I guess it doesn't really matter in the
end. Until the stable branch of sorcery supports xz, were stuck using
bzip2 or gz anyway.

> Perhaps we can eventually add support to configure sorcery to "prefer" a
> certain package option (.gz, .xz, etc.) depending on what's available in
> a spell (this would require changing spells a little bit too perhaps),
> and if a certain option isn't available it can go with the next
> preference down in the list. Just an idea, probably a royal pain to
> implement, and possibly not for much gain, but now it's out there. :)

Cool idea, but that will also probably be a pain for grimoire
developers (having to update hashs, sigs, etc).

Thanks!