OESF Portables Forum

Model Specific Forums => Sharp Zaurus => Zaurus - pdaXrom => Topic started by: pgas on November 04, 2004, 02:08:00 am

Title: UCLX compressor
Post by: pgas on November 04, 2004, 02:08:00 am

Last night I was playing with upx (http://upx.sourceforge.net/) which is an efficient executable packer but unfortunately is doesn't create arm executable.

I was readying myself to try something when I saw that there was allready
an application for zaurus using the same library: uclx (http://inter.zon.free.fr/zaurus_index.html) !!

The compression rate/decrompession speed of the ucl library is impressive (upx was still able to compress decrompress), I've seen someone stating that launch time was even faster after compression and I will definitely (try) to compile uclx later today , if someone doesn't do so  or haven't do so before.

The drawback: it uses a little bit of space on storage for decompression.

I'm posting this because I think those among us without a 4G microdrive might be interested.

Title: UCLX compressor
Post by: ikm on November 04, 2004, 05:59:01 am

Beware that compressed executables make little sense when stored on the internal flash (jffs2 filesystem), since every file there is transparently compressed anyway.

Title: UCLX compressor
Post by: pgas on November 04, 2004, 06:21:29 am

You are right, though I suspect uclx compression might offer a better compression rate and thus might still be interesting.

*edit: another major drawback is that compressed exe might use more ram afterward, anyway i'll give it a try

Title: UCLX compressor
Post by: berkenb on November 04, 2004, 03:30:18 pm

Hi pgas,

somebody already compiled uclx for arm processors: you can find on the old ZSI (www.killefiz.de/zaurus/, I believe). I have been using it for quite a while now, and it works fine with almost all executables I have tried.
It makes most sense on SD or CF cards, and I haven't really noticed much of a difference in startup speeds one way or the other.
You were right that it offers a slightly better compression ratio than jffs2, but in that case it also slows down execution times a little bit...
Beware that I have only tried this on a 5500, but I don't see why it should not work for the 860...

Title: UCLX compressor
Post by: pgas on November 05, 2004, 05:22:44 pm

yeah, the original package might work for pdaxrom as it as little dependency on glibc.
Any a recompiled version for pdaxrom is on the unstable feed.

Indeed for the exxe on jffs2 filesystem,  it is not providing good result ie the compressed xemacs image was takign more space on the internal flash when compressed.

For exe install on sd or cf, it is saving some space.

try by yourself ;-)