Re: apt and multiple connections

[Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu>]

Glenn McGrath <bug1@optushome.com.au> writes:

> Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > 
> > On 22 Sep 2000, Greg Stark wrote:
> > 
> > > A different possibility is to have apt spread connections across many servers
> > > when the same file is available from multiple servers. It doesn't do that now
> > > does it? I think it just uses the first one and uses multiple servers only in
> > > the sense that it picks the most recent file if different versions are
> > > available?
> > 
> You mean like threaded gets, so one threads starts downloading at offset
> 0, the next thread starts downloading at offset (file length/no of
> threeads), when one thread finishes it assists downloading what the
> slowest thread was working on.

Well that wasn't what I meant, though that would be a neat feature too.

I just meant that if I'm downloading 20 packages to begin the first package
from server A and the second package from server B.

> > This was considered.. on the surface it seems like a good idea, but it
> > does increase the instantaneous required bandwidth - perhaps too much.

Obviously that depends on the user's situation. Not all features are
appropriate for all users. Presumably there would be a concurrency level
parameter that users could adjust and maybe could be automatically tuned
somehow. 

I get annoyed every time the mirror I pick becomes unavailable and I have to
go hunt down a new one to put in my sources.list. It seems it would be nicer
to list several and have APT try to download from all of them and use the ones
that work.

-- 
greg