UPX

[Mihail-Klr]

Ahoi, I want to compress as much as possible of the files in the kitchen with UPX compressor, but as I tried to do so, some of the programs gave bugs (some programs seem to use offsets, which are not corrected by UPX.)
So I would need a list of dll's, exe's and so on,in the file, for which things they are, so I can test the compression out. If it should work, I would post this things out, for everyone.
If someone want's to help me, help is welcome!
UPX can compress files for more then 50% (some up to 80%!!!!)
wfg. - Miha
will be here in 2-3 days!

[Mihail-Klr]

there are far too much dll's and ocx's and exe's, to do it all by myself!!!!
Or I will just compress the files and upload them somewhere for testers... or so...

[jakubd]

I think somebody (not sure who it was, maybe Tuatara, but search always work) made a research on this and found out, that it does not make much sense after all and brings more problems, than benefits (slowdowns, more memory used, compatibility problems, problems you mentioned). Only some selected files (biggest and rarely used) can be UPXed for good.

[Mihail-Klr]

actually I have an improvement at all! Better speed! more free space!
And - UPX can be decompressed, so I will re-upload the citchen completely upx'ed.
Compressed with 2.9 alpha (or so, not shure anymore....) and I'm going to test the new 3.01 version, and I am also going to install this one:
UPX4PPC (http://mobile-sg.com/software/?p=UPX4PPC&platform=ppc)

[hanmin]

How to do you judge the improvements in speed? As with any compression technology, it will slow down your system. However, for PPC, there is a fine line in between that due to the slow reading speed of the storage card. However, if that were to be something on the device itself, chances are, probably not. Need to be careful on your benchmarking.

Personally, I would not do much on the system stuff, for which the problem may not be that visible (i.e. bug may not appear on a simple run). As jakubd mentioned above, you ought to just pick a few large files for your compression, which I dont think it is a lot. I played with UPX before and trying to look for big files to compressed.. and it seems that there isn't much around to play with. The only thing I remeber that i've found the last time is the powerpoint.

[Mihail-Klr]

1) I have compressed almost all files and it didn't work. Than I uncompressed some other files again, in the \SYS\OS folder, and - it works!!!!
There is no speed impruvement for flashing the rom trough (it is still 32mb!!!), but there is much more space!
Even the coldstart runs a little bit faster now (only 3-5 sec. but more than nothing).
UPX works better than zip or rar, just read on the HP!
And - you have several MB's in small files, I have compressed them aswell! Youn know, a small cent makes the big dollar (or something in this way).

Folders Compressed_|_Original___|_Compressed
--------------------|-----------|--------------
OEM Folder________|__6.835 kB_|__4.409 kB
SYS______________|_79.927 kB_|_58.760 kB
____It isn't much, but - more than 20.000 kB? (No Word and Excell!!!)

And now I'm testing it, until now - no issues!

2) I have compressed some files in "Program Files" folder - it works aswell!
(CAUTION! MANY PROGRAMS START TO WORK WITH SMALL OR BIG BUGS!)
==> PhoneAlarm Loads FASTER!!! PhoneAlarm Skin editor (around 70kB uncompressed, less that 32kb compressed) loads much longer! So every programm (*.exe) and library (*.dll) should be tested!
Adobe Reader starts two times faster, or more!!! (I haven't used a timer or so....)
DO NOT compare UPX with zip-folders or similar!

Question: Any testers around here? Should I upload?
Changes: another Calc, GS-finder is fexplorer and not cecmd, cecmd included!
Skreen Rotate, Office - excluded (I use other proggies for that - IndiBar and SoftMaker Office 2006)
Because I puted some programs, which are not originally maid for Kitchens and so on, I would ask the proggers, before to re-post the Kitchen btw. to post my mod.
So if anyone wants to have it, or to test it aswell - go on!
PS: It could be, that I included some bugs into the Kitchen, which are not connected to UPX - I do not expire any problems until now! (testing for already 3 days!).