Package: dpkg dpkg supports using lzma for compression of debs however it only suggests the lzma binary package which is what is _currently_ used for decompressing the debs. In the future it would be preferable if a liblzma package existed that dpkg could use similarly to how it uses libbz2. IMHO packages should not pre-depend on the lzma binary package since it is an implementation level detail of how dpkg supports lzma binaries currently. So dpkg needs to pre-depends/depends on the lzma binary package so that packages can use lzma compression. However packages using lzma compression will need a pre-depends on the correct version of dpkg (the one with the depends/pre-depends on lzma).
FWIW - Ubuntu already does the above so that it can have lzma compressed debs. There is more information about what Ubuntu has done and is planning on doing and how much lzma helps at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/dpkg-lzma There is also a patch in Ubuntu for apt-utils apt-ftparchive to support lzma compressed debs that I wrote that someone may want to pull into Debian. The above page has the patch along with including support for Packages files being compressed with lzma except for one pkgAcqIndex::Failed function that needs to be corrected. If the Packages file support isn't wanted then it will need to be split out of the diff. Thanks, Chris Cheney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]