create module: xzm or zstd ?

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roro
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create module: xzm or zstd ?

Post#1 by roro » 22 Aug 2022, 11:13

create module: xzm or zstd ?

I am a newbie to Porteus.
What should I use: xzm or zstd ?
For large modules zstd, for small modules xzm ?
Or is the usage arbitrary?
Or can you also: sometimes like this, sometimes like this?
Thanks

beny
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create module: xzm or zstd ?

Post#2 by beny » 22 Aug 2022, 11:37

hi, the porteus standard compression module is .xzm so if you have to build module like txz2xzm -x you have to use the -x,btw you can try the other if work too...

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ncmprhnsbl
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create module: xzm or zstd ?

Post#3 by ncmprhnsbl » 22 Aug 2022, 13:01

hi, welcome to porteus :) ..
so.. the default compressor for porteus modules at this point in time is xz (all the modules on the ISO come this way)
xz has a reasonable size to decompression speed ratio .. ie. the ISO size is kept down while still remaining performant..
zstd on the other hand has a much faster decompression speed but results in a larger module ... (btw, the file extension .xzm remains the same)
IMO whether that faster decompression speed makes for better performance will depend on your hardware, how you're booting and other factors..
some users have reported better (faster?) performance (response times?) with zstd.
so not so much arbitrary, but at your discretion...
probably, for best performance, all modules should be zstd, but a mixture won't cause any problems.
(be sure, though, if converting any modules by extract/build, do so as root, in a POSIX environment(ext*) ( /tmp, will do, you have no suitable partition) )

an aside: mksquashfs can also use lz4 compression, which has even better decompression speed than zstd, but with a larger size .. but we havn't implemented that in our scripts as an option..
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