From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 1 22:33:58 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F092337B401; Thu, 1 May 2003 22:33:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp01.syd.iprimus.net.au (smtp01.syd.iprimus.net.au [210.50.30.52]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6ACDB43FD7; Thu, 1 May 2003 22:33:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tim@robbins.dropbear.id.au) Received: from dilbert.robbins.dropbear.id.au (210.50.32.82) by smtp01.syd.iprimus.net.au (7.0.012) id 3E96D1D20034AE7E; Fri, 2 May 2003 15:33:53 +1000 Received: by dilbert.robbins.dropbear.id.au (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 4AC79C90D; Fri, 2 May 2003 15:33:34 +1000 (EST) Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 15:33:34 +1000 From: Tim Robbins To: Ruslan Ermilov Message-ID: <20030502153334.A70914@dilbert.robbins.dropbear.id.au> References: <20030502011307.GA82420@sunbay.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <20030502011307.GA82420@sunbay.com>; from ru@freebsd.org on Fri, May 02, 2003 at 04:13:07AM +0300 cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: HEADS UP: bzip2(1) compression for manpages, Groff and Texinfo docs X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 05:33:58 -0000 On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 04:13:07AM +0300, Ruslan Ermilov wrote: > This is just an announcement that I'm going to add bzip2(1) > support to man(1) and makewhatis(1) (catman(1) already has > it), and then switch the default compression method from > gzip(1) to bzip2(1), for manpages, Groff and Texinfo docs. > (The latest 4.5 texinfo supports bzip2.) I don't mean to sound rude, but what is the justification for this? An extremely rough test: $ time bzip2 -c sh.1 | wc -c 16099 0.24s real 0.21s user 0.03s system $ time gzip -c sh.1 | wc -c 18036 0.12s real 0.10s user 0.01s system bzip2 takes ~2 times as long as gzip and the resulting file with bzip2 is ~0.9 times the size of the gzip file. bzip2 does not seem to perform significantly better on small files: $ time gzip -c who.1 | wc -c 2168 0.03s real 0.00s user 0.00s system $ time bzip2 -c who.1 | wc -c 2208 0.04s real 0.03s user 0.00s system (These tests weren't conducted on a particularly fast machine by today's standards: CPU: Pentium/P55C (199.43-MHz 586-class CPU) Origin = "GenuineIntel" Id = 0x544 Stepping = 4 Features=0x8001bf ) Tim