[tex-live] Could LZMA compression be combined with SFX format ?

[Philip TAYLOR]

I can definitely confirm that LZMA  compression
has been used, and that 7-Zip can see inside the file,
bypassing its self-extracting facilities.  Here is
the output from 7-Zip "list" command with full
technical details :

> F:\TeX\Live\2008\ISO\SFX>7z l -slt first-try.lzma.exe
> 
> 7-Zip  4.60 beta  Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Igor Pavlov  2008-08-19
> 
> Listing archive: First-try.lzma.exe
> 
> Method = LZMA
> Solid = -
> Blocks = 1
> Physical Size = 1264728458
> Headers Size = 152
> Offset = 138752
> ----------
> 
> Path = texlive2008-20080822.iso
> Size = 2617149440
> Packed Size = 1264728306
> Modified = 2008-09-30 14:53:36
> Attributes = ....A
> CRC = 340E9D26
> Encrypted = -
> Method = LZMA:24
> Block = 0
> 
> 
> F:\TeX\Live\2008\ISO\SFX>

What we therefore need is for one or more Unix users to
test-unpack the same file using 7-Zip under Unix.

** Phil.
--------

Philip TAYLOR wrote:
> 
> 
> Vladimir Volovich wrote:
>> "PT" == Philip TAYLOR writes:
>>
>>  PT> After testing, the SFX file is actually /smaller/ than the
>>  PT> original LZMA !!!!!
>>
>> this is probably because you were compressing using 7z, but not using
>> lzma, and it happened that 7z compressed the ISO image slightly better
>> than lzma. it is not related to usage of SFX (which always makes the
>> archive slightly bigger than without SFX, using the same compression
>> level).
> 
> Well, the documentation for 7-Zip said LZMA was the
> default, but I am very happy to try again and this
> time force LZMA compression.  I do think this is
> worth pursuing, given the fairly obvious resistance
> to non-ZIP compression in the Windows world ...
> 
> ** Phil.