Q:

Any way to multithread dpkg-deb

Compression for a 500MB deb takes a long time. I still need the compression. Is there anyway to multithread it?
There's pxz, pigz, pbzip2. Is there any way I can get dpkg-deb to use one of these. Or maybe replace the existing non-parallel libraries on my system with these implementations?
I've searched for a while, but it seems that depk-deb only allows a very limited amount of customization for compression options.
I'm using Ubuntu 14.04.

A:

Yes and no.
There is no official support in dpkg's libraries at this point. There is however a patch you can try to use.
Replacing the libraries is not an option because they are not binary compatible. A wrapper library would be needed.

