Arch Linux Developers about the transition of the package packaging scheme from the xz algorithm (.pkg.tar.xz) to (.pkg.tar.zst). Rebuilding packages in zstd format resulted in an overall package size increase of 0.8%, but it provided a 1300% speedup in unpacking. Consequently, switching to zstd will lead to a noticeable increase in package installation speed. Currently, 545 packages in the repository have been compressed using the zstd algorithm, with other packages transitioning to zstd as updates become available.
Packages in the .pkg.tar.zst format are automatically built when using devtools 20191227 and newer releases of this toolset. For users, transitioning to the new format does not require manual actions if the package manager pacman was updated in a timely manner last year () and libarchive (3.3.3-1, released back in 2018). For those who have an outdated version of libarchive, the new version can be installed from
.
Source: opennet.ru
