Re: [Evolution-hackers] compression for folders?

[Not Zed <notzed ximian com>]

On Thu, 2004-05-06 at 12:08 -0400, Jeffrey Stedfast wrote:
>     On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 11:51 -0500, todd fries net wrote: 
> > I'm not quite sure what the difference between archival and transparent
> > compression would be.
> >     
>     
>     the obvious answer is that with archived folders, the folders can be considered to be "read-only" which means compression won't really get in the way (performance wise) since the folders can be assumed to be read only "once in a while".
>     
>     whereas, if you wanted to enable compression for your "in-use" (for lack of a better term?) folders, then it would be a significant enough problem to make it a pita because they are constantly being modified (appended to, expunged, etc).

Well i'd consider appending appropriate for an archive, but not deleting.  Although you could always just store the flag (since you need to anyway).  A small extension to support write-once media would be logical and useful.

> > I get the impression archival would be, well, not very useful if I
> > wanted to see all emails from my wife since I've known her, for example.
> > Would vfolders work on archives?  If so, then what is the difference
> > between transparent compression and non transparent compression?
> >     
Well, its up to how its done.  They could yes.  The only real difference would be the interface for defining them, and how they interact with the rest of the application.
> > BTW, you guys misread my statement.  I have 3gb of mbox files that are
> > compressed already with 'bzip2 -9' ..
> >     
Naah i didn't misread it, i just forgot to mention it in my reply.  Still, disk is cheap.  Really really cheap.
> > In general, I never throw away email, because I have so much spam that I
> > can't trust the auto filters to throw it away, and on more than one
> > occasion important documents have been retrieved from the spam filter
> > box, case in point the recent tax season saw the pdf email from my
> > accountant show up in the spambox.
> >
> > Anyway, I need not justify to you guys why I have so much mail, only
> > impress upon you that I do have so much mail that I wish to utilize
> > evolution to access.
> >     
Did i mention just HOW cheap disk is?  To put this in perspective, if say it took you 2 weeks of full-time work to get this working (a fairly reasonable estimate), thats enough dough to buy about 2-3 terabytes of disk space, at todays retail prices.  And that doesn't include ongoing maintenance.
> > I'm going to test out a port of 1.5 to OpenBSD and from there perhaps
> > migrate to cvs head, from which I can consider developing transparent
> > compression techniques.
> >     
This should not operate on the existing mail stores, but should be implemented as another camel provider.  Then it can be separately developed, it can do whatever you like, and can easily support vfolders (if you support searching, vfolders are free ontop).  If you need any help, please ask.  The nntp, imap4 or imapp providers would probably provide a reasonable starting point.

A general 'compress mailbox' option wont be supported on normal mailboxes.

Looks like I'll be searching for the bug related to this ?? .. hopefully
it isn't too small of a needle buried in too big of a proverbial
haystack.

On Sun, 2004-05-02 at 22:17, Not Zed wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-05-02 at 12:53 +0300, Enver ALTIN wrote: 
> > On Fri, 2004-04-30 at 11:17 -0500, Todd T. Fries wrote:
> > > I am now using evolution 1.2 on OpenBSD for whatever that is worth, and
> > > have about 3gb of bz2 compressed files to move into evolution folders.
> > 
> > Isn't 1.2 a bit outdated to talk about?
> > 
> > > Are there any mechanisms proposed or existing to compress email folders?
> > 
> > Not yet, and the very common answer for similar/related questions in the
> > past was: "No, and it's not planned anytime soon". Transparent
> > compression will probably break vfolder and searching facilities causing
> > a lot more usability and long term maintenance problems. I doubt Gerardo
> > will like the idea :)
> Well transparent compression would be ... transparent, so everything
> would still work if it was done properly.
> 
> My take on it is that it just isn't worth it on its own - hard drives
> are SO cheap these days.
> 
> If you've got 3GB of email lying around it sounds like its actually
> archival you're after ... i'd certainly support some sort of
> development of compressed archive mode folder stuff.
> 
> i.e. not just a general folder compression option, but a special
> backend for archival and/or hsm storage.
> 
> 
> 
> Michael Zucchi
> <notzed ximian com>
> 
> Ximian Evolution and
> Free Software Developer
> 
> 
> Novell, Inc.
-- 
Todd Fries .. todd fries net

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-- 
Jeffrey Stedfast
Evolution Hacker - Novell, Inc.
fejj ximian com  - www.novell.com

Michael Zucchi <notzed ximian com> Ximian Evolution and Free Software Developer

Novell, Inc.