mikshaw
Group: Members
Posts: 4856
Joined: July 2004 |
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Posted: Dec. 29 2005,20:48 |
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tar.gz is downloaded into ramdisk, and then extracted into ramdisk. Initially you'll have both the installed application and the original package using ram as storage space until you remove or move the package. After doing that, the entire installed application is still in ram unless you are using a persistent /opt. UCI packages can be stored anywhere, including a harddisk, and are not installed. They are mounted instead, so the files don't get copied into ramdisk.
The packages themselves are virtually identical, both being installed into /opt/something and run the same way, but UCI is read-only, and umounts when you shut down even when using persistent opt or a full hd install.
Both .uci and .tar.gz are slightly easier on ram than .dsl packages, at least if you don't use any .dsl at all, because .dsl causes more of the KNOPPIX system to be copied into ramdisk.
My personal preference is to use UCI whenever possible. This is not only because of the ram usage, but also because i love the idea of easily adding and removing these self-contained packages. It's not always possible to make a uci package, though. An example is application plugins....if these packages were in uci format the host application would need to already know where to find all the separate plugin directories, which is not a reasonable way to package the host program. In cases like these a tar.gz is used instead. There are still some semi-vital applications that i have yet to try to build as UCI, such as xfree86, so in the meantime i use the .dsl package occasionally.
It has been only recently (dsl2.0?) that the number of cloop devices available for mounting UCIs was increased dramatically, so you are bound to see an ever-increasing number of UCI packages available in the future.
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