[arch-general] xz compression in kernel 2.6.38

KESHAV P.R. skodabenz at gmail.com
Wed Mar 16 10:28:23 EDT 2011


Hi all,
         Now that kernel 2.6.38 supports xz (lzma2, not lzma), how
about using it as the default compression for the kernel and
initramfs. mkinitcpio simply requires COMPRESSION="xz" to generate
lzma2 compressed initramfs. But xz compressed kernel requires change
in the config option and once module-init-toools supports xz
compressed modules we can say good bye to gzip.

Related commits :-

For kernel and initramfs xz support -

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=24fa0402a9b6a537e87e38341e78b7da86486846
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=3ebe12439ba7fc62e1d6ecb569b7287771716ca1
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=303148045aac34b70db722a54e5ad94a3a6625c6

Squashfs xz support

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=81bb8debd0d570dc67dc1e9d8b612632cb941893
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=7a43ae523744c01b6187013e781f44c2281c579c

I think this option should be added to mkinitcpio to make users aware
of this option. Not sure of the reduction in kernel and initramfs size
though (compared to gzip and lzma).

Regards.

Keshav

PS: Seems like I am actually late in conveying this since 2.6.38
kernel is now in testing. But atleast from pkgrel 2 onwards?


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