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Will someone use LZMA soon?

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July 14, 2008 - 6:41pm
#1
CeremCem
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Will someone use LZMA soon?

Hi,

I'm using Slax, but sometimes I need Windows, so I also use (or create) portable apps .

Slax uses modules, which are simply compressed files with LZMA algorithm. The modules are used without extraction, directly reading is supported.

I don't know how to read directly but if someone interests, I guess it won't be such a hard job...

PortableApps' approach is nearly the same as Slax have. The readonly files are under App/ directory and whole changes go to Data/ directory. If someone compile ExamplePortable.exe with a capability of reading archives which are compressed with lzma algorithm; the applications would be half to one fifth of their current sizes.

For example I downloaded both Windows and Linux binaries of SDCC compiler, which are nearly same sizes about 40 MiB, but I could use it directly from its compressed form, which is about 7 MiB on Slax...

Please somebody use that technology!

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July 14, 2008 - 7:07pm
Bahamut
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See 7-Zip Portable.

See 7-Zip Portable.

Vintage!

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July 14, 2008 - 7:07pm
Bobert
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Most of the official portable

Most of the official portable applications here are UPX-ed, and some of them may be using LZMA compression. I know the launchers and installers do, but most of the apps themselves use NRV2E, cause there aren't quite so many compatibility problems.

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

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July 14, 2008 - 9:36pm
(Reply to #3)
Bahamut
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The NSIS installers generally

The NSIS installers generally use LZMA. Whether the binaries included are packed is up to the distributor.

Vintage!

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July 14, 2008 - 8:48pm
digitxp
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Oh...

You mean kinda like those JAR themes in FF.
But of course there is technically no way to do that in NSIS without several hundred WinAPI calls and perhaps even some linux kernel calls.

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July 15, 2008 - 8:54am
CeremCem
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I didn't mean installers

Hi,

First of all, I didn't mean the installers...

I mean, ExamplePortable.exe would read a compressed file without extracting it, and whole readonly data will be compressed with LZMA algorithm. So, we will have;

App.lzma Data\ Other\ ExamplePortable.exe

Only thing we should do for our existing portable applications is to compress the App\ directory with lzma by 7z, and replace the MyApplicationPortable.exe with a new one which could read lzma archives directly (without extraction).

I am not interested in what or how the installers do...

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July 15, 2008 - 3:11pm
(Reply to #6)
digitxp
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Problems:
  1. The App directory isn't really read-only. It's just not to be tampered with. Some apps need to copy a file there and back for it to work portably (like Tux Paint and Sumatra PDF).
  2. I don't think that it would be possible to give the launchers the ability to do so as NSIS is not a programming launguage, but a scripting language designed for installers. The most advanced thing it could possibly do is perhaps rename a window.

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July 15, 2008 - 3:52pm
(Reply to #7)
CeremCem
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Where recompilation comes in

So, to make App\ directory *really* readonly, if we have to recompile the code, we will do what we need to do. Also, I think in this scenario, NSIS wouldn't be the model but Slax (Linux) will be; because Slax is currently using this method.

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July 16, 2008 - 10:31am
(Reply to #8)
digitxp
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Actually

most (if not all) apps here are done without recompiling.
NSIS is what we use to make the apps portable.
Oh, and if it is possible do you happen to know where the code is that Slax uses to read out of compressed files?

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