Frans Pop wrote: > On Thursday 01 November 2007, Joey Hess wrote: > > If you're not on broadband and you choose to use a mirror, it takes > > half an hour or more just to download the Packages file. Apt can > > estimate this reaonably well so you shouldn't even need to wait, you can > > just see in the progress bar estimate that the network is slow[1] > > This is a good indication that you made the wrong choice -- installing > > any significant tasks will take much longer -- and all that's really > > needed then is a Cancel button so you can move on to using a CD instead. Note that I realized after I wrote it that this might not be true for some satellite connections, where the Packages files tend to get cached on the satellite itself (which is pretty cool when it happens BTW ;-), and download fairly quickly but then tend to get you FAPped for the apt-setup portion of the dowload. > OK. This is starting to make sense. > > Say we extend apt-mirror-setup so that it can tell how fast the connection > is (which is probably going to require some serious hacking). > We could then do the following. Try this: debconf-apt-progress aptitude update You can't use apt-get because it doesn't output the timing info to the status-fd, but happily aptitude works. And for results that best mimic d-i, you should add a new mirror to sources.list first so it has something to download. > A) If CD-based install and base-installable > => ask user if he wants to use a mirror > - if Yes > - select mirror > - get packages file (with cancel option!?); determine speed > - if speed ~= "fast broadband" or "local network" > * use mirror, proceed to pkgsel > - if speed ~= "slow broadband" and CD/DVD is first in set > * offer to scan additional CD/DVDs (possibly not in case of DVD) > - if speed ~< "broadband" > * offer to select different mirror (go back to 'select mirror') > * advice against using the mirror during installation > (add commented out in sources.list?) > * if CD/DVD is first in set => offer to scan additional CD/DVDs > - if No > * if CD/DVD is first in set => offer to scan additional CD/DVDs This has problems with connections like satellite that have a FAP policy, since the connection is nice and fast until it downloads too much and becomes slower than dialup. More importantly, getting good definitions for these terms and especially dealing with networks that are close to the cutoff point between them feels difficult and likely to produce inconsistent or unexpected behavior. So my suggestion is actually that we give full control to the user by displaying apt's progress info and letting them cancel any of these big network downloads. I'd also suggest making the mirror setup mention that if a download seems to slow, the user can hit "Cancel". If apt-mirror-setup is canceled, then return to the "use a mirror question" and let them change mirrors or not use a mirror (and go on to scanning CDs). Or alternatively, return to the main menu and let apt-setup be run again. If pkgsel's aptitude download is canceled, return to the main menu so the user can, if necessary, re-run apt-setup. I don't feel this will be too hard to implement, but obviously there's no point on blocking your changes on it. -- see shy jo
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