Comments on: So how good is the new xz compressor? http://rene.rebe.de/2010-08-23/so-how-good-is-the-new-xz-compressor/ //code, //design, //real life Mon, 21 May 2012 11:34:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.6 by: René http://rene.rebe.de/2010-08-23/so-how-good-is-the-new-xz-compressor/#comment-71312 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:01:18 +0000 http://rene.rebe.de/2010-08-23/so-how-good-is-the-new-xz-compressor/#comment-71312 Indeed, for me compression mostly meant storage space (or bandwidth) utilized, as well as time compressing it. Here are decompression numbers where xz indeed looks better: <blockquote> bzip2 -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.bz2 user 0m11.705s lzma -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.lzma user 0m5.304s xz -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.lzma user 0m5.276s gzip -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.gz user 0m2.832s </blockquote> (All to > /dev/null) So indeed during uncompressing xz looks better than bzip2, ... Indeed, for me compression mostly meant storage space (or bandwidth) utilized, as well as time compressing it. Here are decompression numbers where xz indeed looks better:

bzip2 -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.bz2 user 0m11.705s
lzma -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.lzma user 0m5.304s
xz -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.lzma user 0m5.276s
gzip -d < linux-2.6.35.tar.gz user 0m2.832s

(All to > /dev/null)

So indeed during uncompressing xz looks better than bzip2, …

]]> by: Koen Vervloesem http://rene.rebe.de/2010-08-23/so-how-good-is-the-new-xz-compressor/#comment-71311 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:56:19 +0000 http://rene.rebe.de/2010-08-23/so-how-good-is-the-new-xz-compressor/#comment-71311 I'm curious about the DEcompression times for these algorithms, can you measure them? I ask this because xz generally decompresses faster than bzip. That's also the reason why Fedora, Arch Linux and Slackware are using xz as default for their packages now. The slow compression doesn't matter, because it is done by the maintainers, and only when a package is updated. But because decompression of the package is faster than with bzip2 and the compressed packages are smaller (with faster downloads as a result), xz gives a faster package management system from the user's point of view. I’m curious about the DEcompression times for these algorithms, can you measure them? I ask this because xz generally decompresses faster than bzip.

That’s also the reason why Fedora, Arch Linux and Slackware are using xz as default for their packages now. The slow compression doesn’t matter, because it is done by the maintainers, and only when a package is updated. But because decompression of the package is faster than with bzip2 and the compressed packages are smaller (with faster downloads as a result), xz gives a faster package management system from the user’s point of view.

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