bug#23113: parallel gzip processes trash hard disks, need larger buffers

[Mark Adler]

Bastien,

On Apr 12, 2016, at 9:55 AM, Chevreux, Bastien <address@hidden> wrote:
> Questions: how stable / error proof is pigz compared to gzip? I always shied 
> away from it as gzip is so much tried and tested that errors are unlikely ... 
> and the zlib.net homepage does not make an "official" statement like "you 
> should all now move to pigz, it's good and tested enough."

Certainly with -p 1, it is nothing more than a wrapper around zlib, which 
itself is extensively tested. With -p > 1 it uses threads, which has been 
tested on many systems successfully. Though I'd wonder about how portable it 
really is. Unfortunately I have no way to know how widely deployed and used 
pigz is. (Nor do I know how widely deployed and used gzip is, but pretty 
widely.)

> Additional question: is there a pigzlib planned? :-)

I have been toying with ideas about how to provide parallel support in zlib. At 
this point, I'm not sure what the interface should be.

Mark