Any info on the new version of SBI?

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu May 27, 2004 5:39 am

If you really want to use another compression format, just create the SBI with no compression, and compress it with another program. It'll use up more hard drive space, but...

If there is a change in SBI format, it should be as backward compatable as possible. The newer Selfboot Inducer should be able to handle older SBIs. It'd be better still if the newer SBIs were still usable with the older versions of Selfboot Inducer, but all the changes made so far are way too large to do that with.

I think that whatever the current version of SBI is does almost everything that the format currently needs. Some features can be added, but they don't need to change what's already there. This is definitely a good thing.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Thu May 27, 2004 6:48 am

BlackAura wrote:
az_bont wrote:What if you were to include both the 7-zip (or other compression format) decompressor, plus the regular one for zip files?
I don't think there's a command-line 7-zip decompressor available.

There is for Windows, and it works in Linux through Wine. It was just an example, there are others, like RAR. But I didn't realise that there was a whole legal issue surrounding it, so that's obviously out

.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu May 27, 2004 7:42 am

There isn't actually a legal issue for 7-zip. It's mostly technical - backward compatability and cross-platform compatability.

Just found the command-line encoder, by the way. There are actually two of them - one which compresses single files using LZMA (the algorithm 7-Zip uses) and one which works on the 7z archive format. Not tried the 7z program, but the LZMA one works fine (although it's five times slower than RAR and fifteen times slower than Gzip) on Linux on Wine.

Although it does work on Linux under Wine, that's not really a good solution. Wine is huge, relatively slow, and a native port of a program is preferable. That's absolutely not an option on MacOS X, because Wine simply does not work on MacOS X properly. It'd be going back to the dark ages when an SBI was a self-extracting EXE.

RAR has legal issues - it's commercial software, so we can't distribute it. Same goes for a number of other archive formats.

I might have a go at a Linux port, which might be able to work on Linux and MacOS X, but only if it doesn't take long.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Thu May 27, 2004 7:49 am

Isn't there a free command line version of RAR or Mac, Linux and Win32? Or is it restricted by a license?

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu May 27, 2004 8:05 am

There certainly is a command-line version of RAR available for a few OSes (Windows, Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD, DOS), but they're labelled as "Trial". They don't expire or anything, but they're technically considered to be demo versions, and you're generally not supposed to redistribute demos, even if they're freeley available.

Oh, 7Zip actually has code to read RAR archives too, and it's open-source. Of course, if you port 7Zip to Linux and MacOS X just to get free support for RAR archives, you may as well use 7z.

LZMA's quite a nice compression algorithm. It seems to take way too long to compress (but it's not a native version, so I don't know how slow it is) but decompression is very fast (not as fast as Gzip, but faster than Bzip2 or RAR) and it compresses better than anything else I have around here. Shame that it appears to be so tied to Windows - far too many Windows-isms to compile for any other platform at the moment.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Thu May 27, 2004 8:25 am

Ah, they used to be labelled as "Free"

.

curt_grymala · Post by **curt_grymala** » Thu May 27, 2004 12:30 pm

BlackAura wrote:If there is a change in SBI format, it should be as backward compatable as possible. The newer Selfboot Inducer should be able to handle older SBIs. It'd be better still if the newer SBIs were still usable with the older versions of Selfboot Inducer, but all the changes made so far are way too large to do that with.

Version 3 SBI's will work fine with the new version of Selfboot Inducer, and Selfboot Inducer v3 will work fine with the new SBI's. They are completely compatible with each other.

burnerO · Post by **burnerO** » Sat May 29, 2004 3:07 am

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Gui design starts tomorrow *shudders*.

cube323 · Post by **cube323** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 2:45 am

I have just one more request if I may. Although I must first say that I have no idea how you could implement this feature, as I lack the technical knowledge most of you posses.

Anyway, I'd like to be able to play some Mp3's or any other audio file at the main menu of an SBI creation. Kind of like what Dreamsnes does when you boot it up. It's a neat feature and it would really enhance the experience.

Thanks for reading and good luck with the new version.

Mikey242 · Post by **Mikey242** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 5:21 am

This is a nice idea cube, but unfortunatly again this is out of burnerO's hands, or anyone else for that matter. Burner dosent have access to the dreamcast source of this program, all he is doing is the PC part of it (the creation of the program that makes the CD's).

BTW Nice work burnerO

burnerO · Post by **burnerO** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:00 am

Heh, it's seven in the morning and I have class in an hour. I would have gone to bed, but there was the promise of Tuesday that I wasn't about to back down from.

There will be a release today, albeit maybe later in the evening, but still Tuesday none the less.