Re: big Packages.gz file

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "zhaoway" == zhaoway  <zw@debian.org> writes:

    zhaoway> 1) It prevent many more packages to come into Debian, for
    zhaoway> example, Linux Gazette are now not present newest issues
    zhaoway> in Debian. People occasionally got fucked up by packages
    zhaoway> like anachism-doc because the precious band-width. And
    zhaoway> some occasional discussion on L10N packages to distrub
    zhaoway> others life who don't need it.

...only if you download and install the package in question.

What do large packages have to do with the size of the index file,
Packages?

    zhaoway> 2) They have a FIX TIME problem. I.e., if you don't RSYNC
    zhaoway> or DIFF for a long time, they won't save you extra
    zhaoway> bandwidth. While my approach do.

You only download what has changed. Nothing more, nothing less.

I could equally argue, if you wait a while, then exactly one package
in each section will change, causing you to have to re-download all
Index files.

I am not trying to argue that your method is a bad idea, but please
try and get your facts straight first.


Now back on topic: another similar alternative to rsync might be
protocols like rproxy, which add rsync capabilities to
HTTP. Apparently the authors want to include functionality (not sure
what time frame they are talking about here) in Squid and Apache. This
would mean rsync support in apt-get may be less important, you just
need to force it to download Packages not Packages.gz.
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>