[Nix-dev] nixfs

[Christof Douma]

Marc Weber schreef:
>> The idea is to store only differences between similar packages.
> I think you know about nix-store --optimize. It's not that advanced
> though :-)
Actually not.

> Is the chance of having duplicated files bigger in the nix store than
> on a filesystem in general?
> Doesn't this take much time to compare each file against all others to
> find a minimal diff?
> So the basic question is : What does similar mean?
My mind makes it: a new version of a packages. Like the pre-build
packages can be send by binary diffs. Instead of applying these to the
store, nix could simply give this diff to nixfs, which would apply the
patch to the base package at runtime.

> But you are right: On multiuser system there may be dozens of different
> versions of the same lib because everyone has installed the application
> at another point in time..
That was indeed the reason of doing it.

Regards,
Christof