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

[Marco Fioretti]

On Mon, May 27, 2002 23:31:41 at 11:31:41PM -0700, Eugene Wong wrote:
> >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.
> 
> 
Eugene,

I agree about disk space, and of course taking less RAM can only speed
things up. I was referring to something else however, I'm sorry if I
didn't make myself clear.

Installing precompressed binaries is OK, let's do it whenever possible

Compressing them *during* installation is to be avoided with low RAM

On the fly compression of USER generated files, during *normal*
operation, can be set up, but I wouldn't recommend it on a RULE
computer.

	Ciao,
		Marco Fioretti

-- 
If children must grow able to leverage computers to meet their own
goals as free citizens, that's not possible with commercial software,
period. -- Ruben Safir

_______________________________________________
Rule Project HOME PAGE:  http://www.rule-project.org/rule/
Original Rule Development Site http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/rule/Rule-list at mail.freesoftware.fsf.org
http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/rule-list