[ANNOUNCEMENT] [1.7] Updated: {xz/liblzma-devel}-4.999.8beta_20090605-10; New: liblzma1-4.999.8beta_20090605-10
Charles Wilson
cygwin@cwilson.fastmail.fm
Sat Jun 20 11:36:00 GMT 2009
The xz package is the successor to lzma. Its command-line tools
support both .lzma files and the new .xz format, and it ships with
compatibility links so you don't even need to retrain your fingers:
'lzma', 'lzcat', etc, are all still present. However, you probably
should: .xz files are already being used by some upstream source
distribution sites, including GNU FSF, and the new format includes
features (such as internal integrity checks) that the old .lzma
format lacks.
The xz package provides a new runtime library: liblzma supports
encoding as well as decoding, both .lzma and .xz streams. The older
liblzmadec library supported decoding .lzma streams only.
Notes about stability:
======================
>From the package README:
This is a beta version. The .xz file format is now stable though,
which means that files created with the beta version will be
uncompressible with all future XZ Utils versions too (assuming
that there are no catastrophical bugs).
liblzma API is pretty stable now, although minor tweaks may still
be done if really needed. The ABI is not stable yet. The major
soname will be bumped right before the first stable release.
Probably it will be bumped to something like .so.5.0.0 because
some distributions using the alpha versions already had to use
other versions than .so.0.0.0.
For cygwin, this means that the current DLL number "0" will be
changed to "5" (or whatever major soname upstream decides on)
when xz-5.0 is released. This gives us plenty of room (1-4) for
other DLL number changes between now and that release for any
issues that pop up (esp. related to the gcc4 switch?) The final
5.0 release is expected relatively soon. However, I wanted
cygwin to begin supporting the new (now stable) .xz file format
as soon as possible -- and "soon" sounds dangerously close to the
(laughable and always wrong) "Real Soon Now".
[[ compiled using gcc-3.4.4-999 ]]
This package differs from the simultaneously-released
xz-4.999.8beta_20090605-1 package for cygwin-1.5 in only trivial ways:
the README references cygport-0.9.7 and cygwin-1.7.0-50, and the
/usr/share/doc/ layout is influenced by the cygport changes between
0.4.x and 0.9.x.
CHANGES (since xz-4.999beta8-10)
========================
o Update to latest git master (author says current top-of-tree
is "much better" than 4.999beta8, but is not going to release
a new beta anytime soon. Go figure.)
o However, there has been an ABI change so the DLL number needs
to be bumped. liblzma0 remains, but is now obsolete.
o Remove cygwin from requires: in hint files, as sourceware
will take care of that.
--
Charles Wilson
volunteer xz maintainer for cygwin
====================================================================
To update your installation, click on the "Install Cygwin now" link
on the http://cygwin.com/ web page. This downloads setup.exe to
your system. Then, run setup and answer all of the questions.
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