Re: Archive Restructuring - Package Pool
On Thu, 30 Jul 1998, Charles Briscoe-Smith wrote:
> Why (if we implement this package pool) do we even need symlinks in the
> dists hierarchy? <snip>
>
> slink/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz files might contain
>
> Package: foobar
> Version: 1.1-1
> Maintainer: Joe Soap <soap@debian.org>
> Architecture: i386
> Filename: package_pool/f/o/obar/foobar_1.1-1_i386.deb
With the symlink farm, users can identify package files for installation
or upgrade simply, using only generic tools (ftp, netscape, ...), and
without having an up to date local copy of the Packages file. Users
can simply connect to a debian mirror, navigate to the appropriate
directory using navigation information which is not difficult to discover,
and download the needed file. With the mirror site path/filename
information in the Packages file, users would need to be aware of, to be
familiar with, and to use some debian-specific tool to obtain that
information from the Packages file. I see that as a disadvantage.
Also, users with slow/expensive net access may not be refreshing a local
Packages file from the mirrors. Users are not currently required to
download a new Packages file in the absence of an up to date local copy
(and, IMO, should not be required to do so). This seems to imply that the
tool which would obtain the path/filename information needs to be able to
efficiently obtain that information from the Packages file on the mirror
site without downloading the whole file.
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