[TAG] 2-cent tip: compression speed

[Ben Okopnik]

Based on something I saw on the "swsusp" list, I've done a bit of
experimentation with "lzf" compression. It's not any more effective,
size-wise, than some of the common compression utilities - in fact, it's
less so in many cases. What it is, however, is *fast*. 

Results for compressing my 45MB "Sent_mail" box:

rar         0m46.314s
bzip2       0m29.840s
arj         0m7.396s
zip         0m7.008s
gzip        0m6.756s
compress    0m3.094s

lzf         0m0.997s

File sizes:

47668763     Sent_mail
35446476     Sent_mail.lzf
32227703     Sent_mail.Z
25119004     Sent_mail.arj
24836842     Sent_mail.zip
24836720     Sent_mail.gz
23355061     Sent_mail.bz2
22877972     Sent_mail.rar

For applications where speed matters more than size, "lzf" is clearly a
win. For size where speed is not an issue, it's "rar" (which matches the
results of my previous, much broader testing with many file types and
scenarios.)


* Ben Okopnik * okopnik.freeshell.org * Technical Editor, Linux Gazette *
-*- See the Linux Gazette in its new home: <http://linuxgazette.net/> -*-