WIMLIB
-This is wimlib version 1.0.3 (September 2012). wimlib can be used to read,
+This is wimlib version 1.0.4 (October 2012). wimlib can be used to read,
write, and mount files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM files). These
files are normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on Windows,
but this library provides a free implementation of imagex for UNIX-based
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749447(v=ws.10).aspx, so you can
see how it compares.
+ GNU/Linux equivalents of WIM format
+
+What's the equivalent way to capture the filesystem of a GNU/Linux operating
+system into an archive file? You have a few options:
+
+SquashFS:
+ SquashFS (http://squashfs.sourceforge.net/) provides a compressed,
+ read-only filesystem for Linux, and it's probably the closest equivalent
+ of the WIM format and better designed. Although you can't mount
+ SquashFS read-write, when wimlib does this for WIM files it's really an
+ illusion since the WIM isn't actually modified until the image is
+ unmounted. Multiple top-level images in SquashFS files are not
+ supported, although nothing stops you from just putting each image in a
+ separate directory.
+
+FSArchiver:
+ FSArchiver (http://www.fsarchiver.org/Main_Page) is not widely used, but
+ it appears to have some features quite similar to the WIM format.
+
+Tar:
+ The well-known tar format can usually capture a UNIX filesystem just
+ fine, and compressing the tar file produces a good compression ratio
+ (better than WIM, especially if using XZ compression), but there is no
+ support for random access, file deduplication, multiple images per
+ archive, or extended attributes.
+
+Zip:
+ Zip shares some features with WIM but is not designed to store entire
+ filesystems.
+
+7z:
+ The 7z format has some nice features but is unfortunately not designed
+ with UNIX in mind.
+
MORE INFORMATION
See the manual pages for `imagex', the manual pages for the subcommands of
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff