The xz package is the successor to lzma. Its command-line tools support both .lzma files and the new .xz format, and it ships with compatibility links so you don't even need to retrain your fingers: 'lzma', 'lzcat', etc, are all still present. However, you probably should: .xz files are already being used by some upstream source distribution sites, including GNU FSF, and the new format includes features (such as internal integrity checks) that the old .lzma format lacks.
The xz package provides a new runtime library: liblzma supports encoding as well as decoding, both .lzma and .xz streams. The older liblzmadec library supported decoding .lzma streams only. This is the first cygwin release of xz since it has been declared 'stable' by upstream (that is, non-beta). Thus, the upstream DLL number has been changed to "5", so all newly built clients will use 'cyglzma-5.dll' rather than the beta 'cyglzma-1.dll'. [[ compiled using gcc-4.3.4-4 ]] CHANGES (since 4.999.9beta-11) ======================== o Update to 2011-May-17 git snapshot Tue May 17 12:26:28 2011 +0300 841dc1f891b48b23f84c0f0e0c86c7c4e4bdcdf5 - contains a few fixes and back-compatibility corrections, relative to the official 5.0.2 source distribution o Upstream changes: - memory usage limits are disabled by default (use --memory=...) - XZ_DEFAULTS variable is now supported - new 'xz --list' option (use --verbose repeatedly for detailed output) - fixed memory leak - fixed encoding issue with "empty blocks" - documentation improvements - bump soname to 5.0.2 (dllname = 5) o Bump DLL package to "5" to match dllname of post-5.0 releases. -- Charles Wilson volunteer xz maintainer for cygwin ==================================================================== To update your installation, click on the "Install Cygwin now" link on the http://cygwin.com/ web page. This downloads setup.exe to your system. Then, run setup and answer all of the questions. *** CYGWIN-ANNOUNCE UNSUBSCRIBE INFO *** If you want to unsubscribe from the cygwin-announce mailing list, look at the "List-Unsubscribe: " tag in the email header of this message. Send email to the address specified there. It will be in the format: cygwin-announce-unsubscribe-you=yourdomain....@cygwin.com If you need more information on unsubscribing, start reading here: http://sourceware.org/lists.html#unsubscribe-simple Please read *all* of the information on unsubscribing that is available starting at this URL.