Looking for Extraction tools for 7z and Shrinkler

[Brian]

7zdec helped me save a bit more space by allowing me to use 7zip for the archives instead of LZX. Big thanks to chris!

[Ancalimon]

None of the 7z tools on aminet  can extract large archives. Tried both OS3 and OS4 ones. And also the XAD one

[Brian]

None of the 7z tools on aminet  can extract large archives. Tried both OS3 and OS4 ones. And also the XAD one

My archive(s) need to fit a single DD floppy so I wouldn't consider that large, the problem I had was that the tools I found where simply so large with external library that any space saved by the better compression of 7z over LZX was lost.

Chris to the rescue with a port of 7zdec to OS3 with no need for external library and working with 68000. It fit my need very well although it being a bit memory hungry, but I was able to work around that and shave ~63Kb of the initial LZX archive size and with 7zdec crunched to 33Kb (over UnLZX's 10K) there was still about 40K space saved over all.

Now if only I could get hold of a small Shrinkler exe decompress tool I'd most likely be able to save another 12Kb or so.

[paul1981]

I only have HDToolbox Imploder crunched since I don't want it to be crunched on the HDD and I can use deploder for that and having the imploder lib in the exe doesn't add much to the filesize so more spacesaving that way. UnLZX is Shrinkler compressed and doesn't need any library. Rest is either in LZX archive or can't be crunched/packed due to the nature of the file (such as startup-seq, a readme file, L:fastfilesystem)

FastFileSystem is in ROM too, so that's another file you can safely delete. Granted, it's a minor update to the v39 version in the 3.0 ROM, but I don't know what the benefit would be except minor bug fixes. You can use OS3.1 with a 3.0 ROM, which would explain why it is included on disk as the user could install the updated v40 version to their RDB if they so desire. So on a 3.1 ROM system, the updated v40.1 FastFileSystem isn't useful as it's already in ROM.

[Brian]

FastFileSystem is in ROM too, so that's another file you can safely delete. Granted, it's a minor update to the v39 version in the 3.0 ROM, but I don't know what the benefit would be except minor bug fixes. You can use OS3.1 with a 3.0 ROM, which would explain why it is included on disk as the user could install the updated v40 version to their RDB if they so desire. So on a 3.1 ROM system, the updated v40.1 FastFileSystem isn't useful as it's already in ROM.

I wonder if there's not some old A500 HDD controllers software that require FFS on file when setting up the HDD even if it is in ROM, granted it's not the main stream scenario for an OS3.1 installation but still. I've however though about adding an option to decrunch it separately in case it's needed early for HDD setup.

[paul1981]

I wonder if there's not some old A500 HDD controllers software that require FFS on file when setting up the HDD even if it is in ROM, granted it's not the main stream scenario for an OS3.1 installation but still. I've however though about adding an option to decrunch it separately in case it's needed early for HDD setup.

There are some very old controllers which aren't RDB compatible, but I believe those ones would not have drivers in their ROM either, but I'm not sure. Better to cater for the masses being as though you only have one floppy disk to play with.

It sounds an interesting project this, the kind of thing I'd like to muck around with.

[chris]

None of the 7z tools on aminet  can extract large archives. Tried both OS3 and OS4 ones. And also the XAD one

Getting off-topic, but I'd be interested to know what you can't extract with the XAD 7-Zip module. It does need enough RAM (inc. VMEM) to extract files and probably hold the original archive too, so anything over about 2GB won't extract (also I doubt XAD will work with anything over 4GB). Is that the sort of size you're talking about?

[Brian]

There are some very old controllers which aren't RDB compatible, but I believe those ones would not have drivers in their ROM either, but I'm not sure. Better to cater for the masses being as though you only have one floppy disk to play with.

It sounds an interesting project this, the kind of thing I'd like to muck around with.

It's fun but frustrating at times...

What I've had to drop is basically HDBackup/BRU, all printers except for Generic, all localization except for Swedish, Courier, Helvetica, Letter Gothic and _Bullet Fonts and A2232 Serial card support... but I'm still working on shrinking this list even further.

[Ancalimon]

I will check and get back to you, but I think it was a whdloadpack starting with a letter I do not remember.

[chris]

I will check and get back to you, but I think it was a whdloadpack starting with a letter I do not remember.

OK thanks.

[Ancalimon]

OK thanks.

Tried the file responsible. Filesize is 332,299,367. It is called WHDLoad Games Update - 2011-07-18.7z.  UnARC gives a  not enough mem requester when I try to extract the archive or a file from it to my hdd. I have 377,922,544 free fastmem available. I will try with some other 7z files later.

[chris]

Tried the file responsible. Filesize is 332,299,367. It is called WHDLoad Games Update - 2011-07-18.7z.  UnARC gives a  not enough mem requester when I try to extract the archive or a file from it to my hdd. I have 377,922,544 free fastmem available. I will try with some other 7z files later.

I can't find that file anywhere so am unable to try it myself.  However, given the sizes most of your memory will be taken up with the original archive and overhead.  I'd expect it to extract small files from it no problem.  If you try under OS4 with a swap partition then it should extract the whole thing.

Without being able to try it I can't tell if there's some other problem with that file.  Ideally I need to get the plugin to be able to read and write direct to/from disk in order to reduce memory usage, but that's not likely to happen any time soon.

[Ancalimon]

I wish it did not need this much memory. Can't it extract files in chunks that would fit inside available memory?

[Brian]

I wish it did not need this much memory. Can't it extract files in chunks that would fit inside available memory?

I would love that also but sadly right now it doesn't work like that. However you can limit the amount of memory needed if you limit the blocksize of the archive itself though you lose a fair bit of compression. 7zip paramter s=256000b aught to be pretty safe for most 1MB systems.

[chris]

I wish it did not need this much memory. Can't it extract files in chunks that would fit inside available memory?

edit actually, no, it doesn't work as I was thinking it did.
The extraction function here would need to be rewritten so it doesn't allocate all the memory it needs for the entire decoded file, and instead decompress in chunks. That's a modification I don't have the time or energy for.

[nyteschayde]

I recently compiled rzip and uploaded it to Aminet. With a little effort, I could probably get it to compile without ixemul.library as well. I have found that using lha in place of tar (simply because tar is not common on the Amiga) and storing, not compressing, the files, followed by rziping the resulting archive produces massive savings.

For the ADE repack I uploaded, previously compressed with zip, the archive went from 20MB to 13MB using this technique. Something to consider.