[arch-general] xz compression in kernel 2.6.38

[KESHAV P.R.]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 20:09, Gaetan Bisson <bisson at archlinux.org> wrote:
> [2011-03-16 19:58:23 +0530] KESHAV P.R.:
>> 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.
>
> Since XZ decompresses much more slowly than GZIP, this does not seem
> like a good idea unless it is backed up by figures showing that the
> space gain is really worth it.
>

I don't think with the present processors the decompression speed is a
big deal. But anyway the testing kernel already has xz enabled and is
the default now (
http://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/commit/kernel26/trunk/config.x86_64?id=aa6901642b8a3049bbdb72a6acdeee7f5acce868
) . Still i think this discussion is relevant when it comes to
initramfs and compressed kernel modules. Damn, the devs are fast.

- Keshav