[Rule-list] Is in the fly compression needed?

[Eugene Wong]

>From: Michael Fratoni <mfratoni at tuxfan.homeip.net>
>
>On Monday 27 May 2002 11:29 pm, Marco Fioretti wrote:
> > Chris,
> >
> > the problem I see with compressing everything by default is that it
> > would slow down both install and normal operation too much on the kind
> > of processors and RAM settings likely to run RULE.
<snip>
>I'm not sure on the compression issue, but I'd love to hear more about it.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about it, but I have been told that 
compressed binaries actually *speed* things up. Someone mentioned it on a 
LUG mailing list, and I replied politely, trying to explain to him that that 
is impossible. This guy isn't very credible, so you can't blame me for not 
believing him, even though I've never tried it myself. Anyways, someone 
replied to me explaining why the first guy was right. He said that 
compressed binaries take less time to load into memory, and take up less 
memory. This speeds thing up considerably, on new computers. The first guy 
said he tried it on Netscape. Now that I was convinced, I decided to give it 
a try on my Pentium 190, which I use regularly, with Netscape. It didn't 
speed things up, but it didn't slow things down. It seems that there is a 
certain thresh hold that depends on how big the file is, and how much it 
gets compressed. I believe that it really must be done on a case by case 
basis. At the very least, we'll save disk space.


Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong


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