| Index: xz/doc/faq.txt
|
| ===================================================================
|
| --- xz/doc/faq.txt (revision 0)
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| +++ xz/doc/faq.txt (revision 0)
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| @@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
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| +
|
| +XZ Utils FAQ
|
| +============
|
| +
|
| +Q: What do the letters XZ mean?
|
| +
|
| +A: Nothing. They are just two letters, which come from the file format
|
| + suffix .xz. The .xz suffix was selected, because it seemed to be
|
| + pretty much unused. It is no deeper meaning.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: What are LZMA and LZMA2?
|
| +
|
| +A: LZMA stands for Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain-Algorithm. It is the name
|
| + of the compression algorithm designed by Igor Pavlov for 7-Zip.
|
| + LZMA is based on LZ77 and range encoding.
|
| +
|
| + LZMA2 is an updated version of the original LZMA to fix a couple of
|
| + practical issues. In context of XZ Utils, LZMA is called LZMA1 to
|
| + emphasize that LZMA is not the same thing as LZMA2. LZMA2 is the
|
| + primary compression algorithm in the .xz file format.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: There are many LZMA related projects. How does XZ Utils relate to them?
|
| +
|
| +A: 7-Zip and LZMA SDK are the original projects. LZMA SDK is roughly
|
| + a subset of the 7-Zip source tree.
|
| +
|
| + p7zip is 7-Zip's command line tools ported to POSIX-like systems.
|
| +
|
| + LZMA Utils provide a gzip-like lzma tool for POSIX-like systems.
|
| + LZMA Utils are based on LZMA SDK. XZ Utils are the successor to
|
| + LZMA Utils.
|
| +
|
| + There are several other projects using LZMA. Most are more or less
|
| + based on LZMA SDK.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: Do XZ Utils support the .7z format?
|
| +
|
| +A: No. Use 7-Zip (Windows) or p7zip (POSIX-like systems) to handle .7z
|
| + files.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: I have many .tar.7z files. Can I convert them to .tar.xz without
|
| + spending hours recompressing the data?
|
| +
|
| +A: In the "extra" directory, there is a script named 7z2lzma.bash which
|
| + is able to convert some .7z files to the .lzma format (not .xz). It
|
| + needs the 7za (or 7z) command from p7zip. The script may silently
|
| + produce corrupt output if certain assumptions are not met, so
|
| + decompress the resulting .lzma file and compare it against the
|
| + original before deleting the original file!
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: I have many .lzma files. Can I quickly convert them to the .xz format?
|
| +
|
| +A: For now, no. Since XZ Utils supports the .lzma format, it's usually
|
| + not too bad to keep the old files in the old format. If you want to
|
| + do the conversion anyway, you need to decompress the .lzma files and
|
| + then recompress to the .xz format.
|
| +
|
| + Technically, there is a way to make the conversion relatively fast
|
| + (roughly twice the time that normal decompression takes). Writing
|
| + such a tool would take quite a bit time though, and would probably
|
| + be useful to only a few people. If you really want such a conversion
|
| + tool, contact Lasse Collin and offer some money.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: I have installed xz, but my tar doesn't recognize .tar.xz files.
|
| + How can I extract .tar.xz files?
|
| +
|
| +A: xz -dc foo.tar.xz | tar xf -
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: Can I recover parts of a broken .xz file (e.g. corrupted CD-R)?
|
| +
|
| +A: It may be possible if the file consists of multiple blocks, which
|
| + typically is not the case if the file was created in single-threaded
|
| + mode. There is no recovery program yet.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: Is (some part of) XZ Utils patented?
|
| +
|
| +A: Lasse Collin is not aware of any patents that could affect XZ Utils.
|
| + However, due to nature of software patents, it's not possible to
|
| + guarantee that XZ Utils isn't affected by any third party patent(s).
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: Where can I find documentation about the file format and algorithms?
|
| +
|
| +A: The .xz format is documented in xz-file-format.txt. It is a container
|
| + format only, and doesn't include descriptions of any non-trivial
|
| + filters.
|
| +
|
| + Documenting LZMA and LZMA2 is planned, but for now, there is no other
|
| + documentation that the source code. Before you begin, you should know
|
| + the basics of LZ77 and range coding algorithms. LZMA is based on LZ77,
|
| + but LZMA is *a lot* more complex. Range coding is used to compress
|
| + the final bitstream like Huffman coding is used in Deflate.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: I cannot find BCJ and BCJ2 filters. Don't they exist in liblzma?
|
| +
|
| +A: BCJ filter is called "x86" in liblzma. BCJ2 is not included,
|
| + because it requires using more than one encoded output stream.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: How do I build a program that needs liblzmadec (lzmadec.h)?
|
| +
|
| +A: liblzmadec is part of LZMA Utils. XZ Utils has liblzma, but no
|
| + liblzmadec. The code using liblzmadec should be ported to use
|
| + liblzma instead. If you cannot or don't want to do that, download
|
| + LZMA Utils from <http://tukaani.org/lzma/>.
|
| +
|
| +
|
| +Q: The default build of liblzma is too big. How can I make it smaller?
|
| +
|
| +A: Give --enable-small to the configure script. Use also appropriate
|
| + --enable or --disable options to include only those filter encoders
|
| + and decoders and integrity checks that you actually need. Use
|
| + CFLAGS=-Os (with GCC) or equivalent to tell your compiler to optimize
|
| + for size. See INSTALL for information about configure options.
|
| +
|
| + If the result is still too big, take a look at XZ Embedded. It is
|
| + a separate project, which provides a limited but significantly
|
| + smaller XZ decoder implementation than XZ Utils.
|
| +
|
|
|
| Property changes on: xz/doc/faq.txt
|
| ___________________________________________________________________
|
| Added: svn:eol-style
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| + LF
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