Re: Diety UI draft
On 1 Aug 1997, Rob Browning wrote:
> I get about 2000-3000 bytes/sec with my 33.6 modem (usually connects
> at less than 33.6). I'm not saying this to be snotty, I'm just
> wondering where your bottleneck is. Are you just using a slow modem?
Currently, I'm using an old 9600 BPS modem (hardware problems).
That's not my 100-400 bytes/sec thruput bottleneck, though.
I see my modems TD and RD LEDs dark much of the time. I'm on
Boracay island in the Philippines. My net connection is thru my
modem to a Boracay ISP, a (probably async 33kb) link to Kalibo on
Panay island, perhaps to Iloilo at 64kb, then to Manila from either
Kalibo or Iloilo at 64kb, then to SanFrancisco, at 128 or 256kb.
I think it's the SF-Manila link getting clogged up and/or lost
packets & timeouts which kills my thruput.
I'd bet my low thruput situation isn't unique, or even uncommon,
though, and I'd bet that debian developers are in general better
connected than debian users. Also, similar constraints to those
forced on me by my low thruput apply for people paying for local
calls. At 3000 bytes/sec, 200MB (half of a 400MB distribution)
takes 18 hours of download time. That's 18 hours with the meter
running at the phone company. You see people on debian-devel
complaining that being cc'd on unnecessary emails is running up
their phone bills -- never mind a few tens of MB of downloading.
I can relate to that. Until recently, my net connection was via
long distance phone calls to Manila.
> I do agree that having a tool to generate a list of needed packages
> like dpkg-ftp is a very useful thing if you can't afford the disk
> space for a mirror (now about 500MB if you include non-free, contrib,
> non-US (source and bin), and unstable).
The disk space for a mirror is much easier to come by than the
bandwidth needed to download -- at least for some of us.
I wasn't being snotty when I asked if diety was aimed just at
those with fast net connections. Buying CDs helps a lot with the
bulk of the distribution (even if that snail-mail snail does take
a long time to reach my remote corner of the world). Even with a
CD, though, downloading package upgrades can kill me. I need to
pick and choose what I download, and I'd bet that I'm not alone
in that. Having a slick front end which would help me do that
and drive a backq end to automate the downloading of the packages
I pick&choose would be very nice. Having a slick front end that
doesn't help me out in a limited bandwidth situation isn't nearly
as useful.
(Also, more unique to my situation than the low thruput, U.S. business
hours fall after midnight locally. Tying up the phone with overnight
downloads makes me difficult to contact.)
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