EROFS Gets Low-Latency Decompression For Much Better Performance

The EROFS file-system updates for Linux 6.3 include introducing a new option for per-CPU KThreads to provide low-latency decompression for speeding up use of compressed EROFS file-systems on Android devices.

The EROFS pull request was sent in this morning for Linux 6.3 and is headlined by now offering per-CPU KThread decompression support for low-latency I/O handling to enhance application run-time performance.

The new codde for Linux 6.3 introduces the "EROFS_FS_PCPU_KTHREAD" Kconfig build time option for per-CPU KThread workers for performing async decompression to yield lower latency with the focus being on Android use. There is also a "EROFS_FS_PCPU_KTHREAD_HIPRI" Kconfig option added too for running those KThread workers at higher priority.

This new functionality yielded an 80% improvement in tests carried out by the EROFS developers. This is a very nice improvement compared to the EROFS workqueue implementation for decompression and was worked on by Google engineers.

The rest of the EROFS changes for Linux 6.3 are smaller improvements to this lightweight read-only file-system.