general question about jigdo, OS architectures and server load/space....
Dear Debianists,
This may be a somewhat dumb question but it might have some merits so I am
going to ask it.
From the postings on the list I have received so far I have learned some
interesting facts about jigdo, Sarge, Etch i386 and Etch AMD64.
I am very grateful to everyone who responded for their time and patience.
I respect this.
If I understand it correctly upgrading from e.g. A Sarge DVD to Etch is with
jigdo is pretty much pointless because there is so little overlap of common
files between the two releases.
I seem to have confirmed this myself in practice when I scanned the two DVDs
of Sarge 3.1 r4 under jigdo having read in the jigdo file for Etch RC1 CD
image number 1.
I only found 23 or so files on both DVDs that were common to the 1200 or so
files that jigdo says comprise the first CD image of Etch RC1.
So I have dumped the idea of bootstrapping an Etch RC1 download with jigdo
and my Sarge DVDs. It is a non starter.
However, it does seem as though Etch AMD64 does share a reasonable number of
files in common with Etch i386.......
My new question is this:
If you look on the Debian installer page you see that distributions of the
OS for a variety of different architectures exist:
[alpha] [amd64] [arm] [hppa] [i386] [ia64] [m68k] [mips] [mipsel] [powerpc]
[sparc] [s390]
My question is this:
What degree of common files would exist between all or certain sub groups of
these different architectures?
Would there be enough in either all of them or a subset that it might make
sense to make a separate downloadable common iso file image or jigdo file
set that you could downnload from one common server address and then get
only the extra files needed to make up the entire distribution for the each
specific individual architecture from its own server site address?
If so would this not save on server space allocation and download time?
My other question this is this.
Is the reason that the number of common files to be found when comparing the
Sarge 3.1 release of Debian and e.g the Etch RC1 is very low a function of
the fact that huge changes have been made across the OS?
Or is it that the underlying contents of a lot of files is identical to
those found in Etch but they have been given different names or small
changes have been made to them such that they are not absolutely identical
any longer?
Is it possible that Lenny could be written in such a way as to maximise the
reuse of identical files from the point of jigdo that are used in Etch in
such a way as not to undermine the innovative progress and develolpment of
Lenny?
Could all the architecture releases of Lenny be designed to make maximum use
of jigdo in the ways I am describing or would it be a beaurocratic
nightmare or a waste of time with no benefit, or worse would it cock up and
interfere with the development of Lenny?
If you think this a garbage idea feel free to say so.
I don't mind.
Regards
Michael Fothergill
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