From: djk@boombox.apana.org.au (David Keegel) Subject: Unix fs compression (was Re: one-file-per-newsgroup) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 11:08:27 +1000
Apologies to Linux people for the MS-DOS and (even worse) OS/2 references.
Please delete these in followups (since they'll be in comp.os.linux).
In comp.bbs.waffle, dvss!jtroy@udel.edu (Jay Troy) writes:
>>> Frankly, my attitude is that disk space is relatively cheap, and that a good
>>> focus on improving/maintaining the efficiency of the per-article database
>>> architecture is a better investment of energy.
>Of course, if you use something like Stacker or DoubleDisk for MSDOS, or
>DCF/2 or Stacker for OS/2 (when available), this argument and effort becomes
>moot. Physically, the files are stored together as one larger file when
>you use one of these packages. To the application, they appear as they did,
>only you don't waste the allocation space at all (not to mention compression
>benefits). One day, all decent filesystems will include compression.
>Why bother to reinvent the wheel, you should develop an on-the-fly compression
>engine for your Unix filesystem instead.
Has anyone done or looked at doing this for Linux? I know a guy that did
some research (incl implementation) on compressed file systems; I might
see if I can get him to copyleft it and let me port it to Linux (if I can
find time; probably in a few weeks).
-- <David.Keegel@apana.org.au> <djk@boombox.apana.org.au> Tel: +61 3 593-1460 aka: djk@cs.mu.oz.au. Work: djk@bhppmel.bhp.com.au. Tel: (03) 652-7145