Re: A 'diff' eq for binaries?
"J.A. Bezemer" wrote:
>
> On 17 Jul 2000, Ben Gertzfield wrote:
>
> > >>>>> "Pavel" == Pavel M Penev <kal_pav@sz.techno-link.com> writes:
> >
> > Pavel> 10X a lot. My idea it to ask you if you are plannig to use
> > Pavel> it for upgrading .deb-s.
> >
> > There have been a few attempts to do this in the past; the main
> > problem is that if you use xdeltas, you have to provide an xdelta
> > between *EVERY* prior version and the current version, or else
> > they still have to download the entire .deb over again.
>
> Another (better) approach would be using rsync. However, that would
> require un-zipped .debs at either end.
I just attended Andrew Tridgell's Rsync talk at OLS and he mentioned
that he has a patch for gzip to make it rsync friendly. IIRC, he said it
limits the effect of a change in the gzip to no more than 32k of
difference due to gzip(or something like that). He said there are also
people working on putting rsync into squid and apache.
So all that remains is to convince upstream to accept it, update the
deb, get all the developers to install it and use it on the next upload
of their packages :)
Seriously, it's not as bad as that. Upon acceptance it would have
benefits right away since the packages that are changing the most often
would create the most savings. It will take a very long time for all
packages to use the new gzip but who cares since they're not changing
anyways.
I would love it if Debian's archive were rsync friendly. This could be
really beneficial for the mirrors.
--
Matt Taggart
taggart@fc.hp.com
Reply to: