Re: MSDOS name conversion

["brian (b.c.) white" <bcwhite@bnr.ca>]

>For people without ftp access from their Debian machine, I expect it's  
>quite typical that they do all their upgrades via floppies.
>
> [...]
>
>The longer I read this thread, the more I get convinced that we should  
>simply stop having gigantic, unsplit packages in Debian. There's not  
>really any benefit in having them, and there is obvious benefit in having  
>split packages.
>
> [...]
>

See my previous comments about running "split" after the FTP is done, and
the algorithm to pack floppies efficiently.


>> Why does "split" have to work on
>> existing files?  Write "split" in perl that uses "ftp.pl" and splits the
>> stream as it comes down.  If you have to FTP one file at a time and then
>> copy that file to a disk, then you are already in hell.  Having "split"
>> keep the transfer going while you copy it's latest output to disk could
>> only help you.
>
>Nice. Now do the same under MS-DOS. That's the sort of system I did my  
>first FTPs from, several years ago. Fortunately, I had room. If I hadn't  

I could.  The FTP protocol is quite simple.  Splitting after download is
easier, though.


>> A perl script would handle most implementations.  Not to mention, which of
>> these platforms don't already have some sort of "split" program?  Don't
>> tell me you're running OS/2 or NT from floppy?
>
>Why do you think OS/2 or NT *need* a "split" program? (Incidentally, at  
>least OS/2 doesn't have one.)

Really?  No where is there "split" for OS/2?  Are you sure?  I'll bet there
is pkzip for OS/2 and it should handle splitting across floppies.  Of course,
you'd need "unzip" for linux, but that's available.


>> BOTTOM LINE:  There are better solutions than splitting the files in the
>>               distribution.
>
>BOTTOM LINE: You certainly didn't show any solution I would not call a
>             *lot* worse.

Why is a simple DOS program that splits FTP'd package files optimally among
many floppies a *lot* worse?  Why is it worse at all?

                                        Brian
                                 ( bcwhite@bnr.ca )

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