libjpeg vs. libjpeg-turbo

[René J.V. Bertin]

Hi,

Updating port:LibVNCServer yesterday I was reminded of libjpeg-turbo, which supposedly is

- 2-4x faster than the regular, scalar, libjpeg (something that ought to benefit VNC)
- a drop-in replacement

Can anyone confirm those claims? I think it's rather safe to assume the 2nd claim is true because on my Ubuntu rigs I have the turbo variant installed instead of the scalar version, and everything seems to work just fine.

Of course there's also port:mozjpeg which claims to be taking steps a bit further even (though not necessarily in terms of faster performance).

I think I'm going to experiment with rolling port:libjpeg-turbo into a +turbo variant of port:jpeg and see if I notice any issues. Are there strict rules against providing a port both as a true standalone port and as a variant to another port? I know the preferred way of providing alternatives is via a PortGroup, but given the number of ports that would have to be modified to use a jpeg portgroup before users can start installing either the one or the other libjpeg that's not what I like to call a transparent change ...

R.