Best compression Algorithm

jpc82 · Guru Joined: 09 Mar 2003 Posts: 326

I have my file server configured to compress all my important files (200MB) every night and back them up to a seperate HD. Now my question is what is the best compression to use?

Right now I have it using rar, but I was wondering which compression format is the fastest/smallest.

NOTE: this files are mostly documents, pdfs, code, and pictures.

iten · n00b Joined: 31 Jan 2004 Posts: 36

bzip2(more of a standard)or rzip(better compression) will get you pretty reasonable results (depending on the type of data you're working with).

zsoltika · Posted: Thu May 27, 2004 5:26 pm Post subject:

Just weeks ago I read about rzip, here: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/001842.html
And there was thread about this on the gentoo-user mailing list. Here is the thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/80496

Cheers,
Zsoltik@
[/url]

Andersson · Posted: Thu May 27, 2004 7:10 pm Post subject:

For important backups: afio

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n_ck · n00b Joined: 23 May 2005 Posts: 16

I'm looking for something as powerful as WinRAR on windows (deals with Zips, Tars, RARs, etc)...preferably something that can be run from the command-line, or has a GUI included.

Any suggestions?

EDIT: decompression...gotcha

Gherald · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 4:44 pm Post subject:

It's called "decompression", not "uncompression"

for the console, use individual utilities (tar, gzip, bzip2, unzip, unrar, etc)

for a GUI, try file-roller

eniac · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:14 pm Post subject:

bz2 has the best compression algorithm, I think ... ?
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tetromino · Retired Dev Joined: 02 Dec 2003 Posts: 215

Gherald · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject:

Guys, this isn't about the best compression scheme. He asking what the best decompression utility is.

eniac · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:29 pm Post subject:

I was just wondering what the best compression utility would be .. and it's on topic I guess..
No need to create Yet An Other post ....
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Gherald · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:32 pm Post subject:

Mkay, I thought you were trying to answer his question

yes bzip2 is the best in terms of smallest size

but gzip is much faster, and so continues to be widely used

30726 · Veteran Joined: 24 Sep 2003 Posts: 1501

There's a command line version of 7-zip available.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=111810

lotw · Guru Joined: 09 Jan 2005 Posts: 342 Location: Palmdale

Well if you have all the different type of formats installed on your machine, ie: rar, ace, etc. You can use Krusader (the two pane filemanger for KDE) to do all the formats. It compresses and decompresses perfectly. Also the standard ARC or File-roller will also do what you want.

Frodg · l33t Joined: 11 Feb 2004 Posts: 761

emerge File-Roller
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Sadako · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 1:16 am Post subject:

From the command line for decompression only, the simplest way is to emerge unfoo.
It's a small script which determines which utility to use to decompress an archive.
Just "unfoo filename"
Incredibly useful. I swear by it.
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54815 · n00b Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 36

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-178508-highlight-compression.html

Maedhros · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:

Merged from https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2437313.html#2437313
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