- SquashFS
Squashfs (.sfs) is a compressed read-only
file system for Linux. Squashfs compresses files,inode s and directories, and supports block sizes up to 1024 KB for greater compression. Squashfs is alsofree software (licensed under the GPL) for accessing Squashfs filesystems.Squashfs is intended for general read-only file system use and in constrained block device/
memory systems (e.g.embedded system s) where low overhead is needed. The standard version of Squashfs uses gzip compression, although there is also a project that bringsLZMA compression to SquashFS [http://www.squashfs-lzma.org/] .Uses
Squashfs is used by the
Live CD versions ofDebian ,Finnix ,Gentoo Linux , Ubuntu andFedora and on embedded distributions such as theDD-WRT router firmware. It is often combined with anunion mount filesystem, such asUnionFS oraufs , to provide a read-write environment for live Linux distributions. This takes advantage of both the SquashFS's high speed compression abilities with the ability to alter the distribution while running it from a live CD. Distributions such asSlax ,Debian Live andMandriva One use this combo.As the on-disk format of SquashFS have not stabilized yet [http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A-Squashfs-mainline-status-p13174944.html] , it is not ready for long-term archival use (i.e. in cases where a tar file may be used).
See also
*
List of file systems
*Comparison of file systems
*Cramfs is another read-only compressed file system
*zisofs is a transparent compression extension to theISO 9660 file system
*Cloop is a compressed loopback device module for theLinux kernel
*e2compr provides compression forext2 External links
* [http://squashfs.sourceforge.net/ Squashfs website]
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