From: pdh@netcom.com (P D H) Subject: Re: New feature for the filesystems. What do you think ? Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 06:29:17 GMT
jeremy@sw.oz.au (Jeremy Fitzhardinge) writes:
>I suppose it's seen as a good idea because it's standard in DOS 6.
>However, I can't think of many compelling reasons why such a thing is
>needed in unix, let alone the unix kernel. Uncompressing files on the
>fly mucks lots of assumptions in the basic workings of the filesystem
>and vm system, and prevents things from happening that are a bigger win
>in the long term. It seems to me that a cron job that finds long-unused
>files (most of them) and compresses them would be more useful. The tcx
>(?) system is example of this idea. Frequently used files shouldn't
>be compressed, its not so hard to decompress files that are only used
>every now and then.
Same problem for very large files. What if one of the big files gets
compressed, then later it is referenced when there is no longer space
to hold both copies?
*IF* it is sequential, making the decompression transparent would be
the way to go, and could be done in the library code, or the file system
interface (please, not the kernel).
For random files, something else is needed.
Another thing that is possible is for those who design their file formats
for new applications to integrate compression into it.
-- | Phil Howard, pdh@netcom.com, KA9WGN Spell protection? "1(911)A1" | | Right wing conservative capitalists are out to separate you from your MONEY | | Left wing liberal do gooders are out to separate you from EVERYTHING ELSE!! | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+