Compressed filesystem for FreeBSD
Robert Watson
rwatson at freebsd.org
Wed Nov 19 08:25:12 PST 2003
On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Sergei Mozhaisky wrote:
> Hello everyone.
>
> I am searching for compressed filesystem for FreeBSD.
>
> Why do I need compressed filesystem? I am developer of FreeBSD-based
> LiveCD, and the main problem of liveCD is loading speed - it's too slow,
> comparing with Knoppix or other Linux LiveCD. Usage of compressed
> filesystem will improve software loading speed and allow to put more
> software to CD.
>
> I found info about project "FiST" in freebsd-fs archives, this is almost
> what I need:
> ftp://ftp.filesystems.org/pub/fist/fistgen-0.0.7.tar.gz But gzipfs
> module does not compile in FreeBSD (developers said that size-changing
> algoritm they used currently works only in Linux) So the question is
> simple: is there any implementations of compressed filesystems for
> FreeBSD (even as unofficial projects)? This will help a lot in such
> projects as FreeBSD-based LiveCD.
If your file system is read-only, I wonder if the easier path wouldn't be
to implement a compression layer for GEOM. That would keep you out of the
business of alternative for stacked file systems, which is a painful
business to be in :-). You could use regular UFS or cd9660, and then
compress the resulting image using a custom (or off-the-shelf) tool. The
trick will be to have random access to the compressed data...
Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert at fledge.watson.org Network Associates Laboratories
More information about the freebsd-fs
mailing list