pixz VS precomp-cpp

That's really confusing since `pixz` exists and its "pixie" pronunciation actually works

https://github.com/vasi/pixz

pixz (https://github.com/vasi/pixz) is a nice parallel xz that additionally creates an index of tar files so you can decompress individual files. I wonder if dpkg could be extended to do something similar.

There's pixz, which indexes the tarball, allowing listing/extracting individual paths without decompressing the whole thing.

Also relevant is pixz [1] which can do parallel LZMA/XZ decompression as well as tar file indexing.

[1] https://github.com/vasi/pixz

Yes, it's as easy as installing pixz with symlinks pointing to xz (I think Debian even does this automatically as part of its post-installation scripts).

pixz - Parallel, indexed xz compressor. BSD-2-Clause

Not quite what you're asking, but if you're a 7-Zip fan and on Linux, you might be interested in pixz.

You should look at Precomp - an apparently abandoned, but awesomely working arhiver that is dedicated to compressing those ZIP-based formats, and compresses them twice-thrice as small as LZMA2 can.

You can also have a look at this packer. It compresses PDF and EPUB 2-3 times smaller than 7z at maximum settings, at half the speed. I keep all my books in it and never had a problem.

There is an opensource archiver called precomp that is designed specifically for e-documents and compresses them 2-3 times smaller than 7z in ultra mode. It works, and I keep my e-books in it. However, it seems nobody else does, and development has stopped due to lack of interest.

There are tools like preflate [1] or precomp [2] that guarantees a bitwise identical reconstruction, of course modulo bugs.

[1] https://github.com/deus-libri/preflate

[2] https://github.com/schnaader/precomp-cpp/ (which internally makes use of preflate)

You may use "precomp" in order to seek and uncompress those parts. Then you can use a better compression algorithm : http://schnaader.info/precomp.php

Precomp http://schnaader.info/precomp.php is a program which will seek compressed parts and decompress those parts in order to compress with another algorithm. This greatly improve compression ratio with the other algorithm.

This may be of help. (a255854 and d649919)