cloop and fitting in memory

Posted Feb 1, 2007 5:10 UTC (Thu) by pjm (guest, #2080)
Parent article: Embedded Linux: Using Compressed File Systems

I don't understand "The disadvantage of [cloop] is that the entire image must fit into memory in order to be uncompressed": is it a reference to the sentence "Make sure you have enough swap to hold the entire compressed image in virtual memory!" in the README and web page?

Looking at the source code suggests that this is no longer necessary; though I haven't tried.

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cloop and fitting in memory

Posted Feb 1, 2007 13:26 UTC (Thu) by incase (guest, #37115) [Link]

I'm almost certain that cloop doesn't need enough (virtual) memory to fit the whole image into it. I mean, as the article says, Knoppix uses cloop (TTBOMK) and with it's DVD providing far more that 4GB of uncompressed (and nearly 4GB compressed IIRC) image, how would that work on systems with "just" 1GB RAM and no swap? And I have systems with less RAM and no swap worth mentioning which happily run the Knoppix DVD version.

Sven