Automatic download mode for jigdo?
I understand this is all a volunteer effort and so you can't
expect installing Debian to be as easy as installing, say,
Windows 98, but.. :)
It would be nice if jigdo could do most of the hunting for
files by itself, rather than me having to supply it with
components.
Personally, I rather dislike the way I'm supposed to guess
which mirror I should use, because most mirror lists provide
far too little information for me to know if my choice is
really a "good" one.
A good mirror to me is a close mirror.. one that does not
necessary tie up the Internet too much, or travel further
than necessary to get the job done.
Except just geographical information is often not good
enough. If I visit the website of the school where I work,
it is physically 15 miles away from me. But by network, the
signal actually goes south some 500 miles to the main hub in
Chicago, then up to Minneapolis, then back over here some
200 miles to me.. probably a good thousand miles round-trip.
If I were running a Debian mirror there at school, it would
in fact be better to IGNORE it and use one in Chicago
instead, since "by wire" the Chicago mirror would actually
by "closer". But if I had not done manual traceroutes, I
likely would not have known which one is "really" a close
mirror for me.
I think it'd be far better if jigdo were to just give the
user a generalized list of continent-level regions, then
narrow it by one level, and determine the next step of which
mirrors to use by itself.
(Actually, I think it'd be nice if most of the process could
be automated so the user needs only to type a few characters
while jigdo auto-finds and auto-downloads whatever it needs
by itself. But this is probably asking for too much of a
volunteer effort.)
Something like this, perhaps?
AUTOMATIC JIGDO
To help Jigdo find a mirror near you, please choose the
continent nearest you:
1. North America 5. Africa
2. South America 6. Australia
3. Europe 7. Antarctica
4. Asia
Selection: 1
Please choose your general location in/around North America:
1. Continental United States 5. Alaska
2. Canada 6. Hawaii
3. Mexico 7. Cuba
4. Greenland
Selection: 1
Getting regional mirror list from http://www.debian.org/mirror/list...
Checking 32 mirrors in your region. Please wait..
Hops: 11 Ping: 147 ftp.us.debian.org
Hops: 7 Ping: 104 ftp.debian.org
Hops: 14 Ping: 166 ftp.egr.msu.edu
**Cannot contact ftp.ndlug.nd.edu
Hops: 12 Ping: 122 mirrors.rcn.net
Hops: 9 Ping: 242 ftp.rutgers.efu
Hops: 5 Ping: 97 linux.csua.berkeley.edu
(...)
Saving results of mirror check..
Jigdo recommends these top five mirrors:
1. Hops: 5 Ping: 97 linux.csua.berkeley.edu
2. Hops: 7 Ping: 104 ftp.debian.org
3. Hops: 11 Ping: 147 ftp.us.debian.org
4. Hops: 12 Ping: 122 mirrors.rcn.net
5. Hops: 13 Ping: 144 ftp.silug.org
Select one (or type 0 to choose another region): 1
Getting list of available .jigdo images...
Do you want the current distribution? y
Here are the current disitributions.
1. DEC 4. i386 7. MIPS 10. SPARC
2. ARM 5. IA64 8. PowerPC
3. HPPA 6. M68k 9. S390 11. Sourcecode
Select one: 4
There are seven CD ISOs in the current i386 distribution:
(NOTE: You only need CD #1 to install the rest over a network)
1. woody-i386-1 5. woody-i386-5
2. woody-i386-2 6. woody-i386-6
3. woody-i386-3 7. woody-i386-7
4. woody-i386-4
Select a CD ISO to download: 1
Saving selections...
Auto-downloading .jigdo image template from nearest
mirror...
Building ISO image...
[....]
ERROR downloading ISO component! Do you want Jigdo to
automatically try the next mirror nearest to you?
(Jigdo will auto-select "Yes" in 1 minute.)
Your selection:
(Auto-selected Yes.)
Building ISO image...
[....]
ISO Completed.
Since this is an all-volunteer effort, I am probably
asking for too much here. But I just wanted to ask.. :)
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