Packages file missing from unstable archive
It seems that recently, the uncompressed version of the "Packages" file
has disappeared from the "unstable" archive on the Debian network
servers and all their mirrors.
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/
On the other hand, the uncompressed file is still available for the
"stable" and "testing" archives.
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-i386/
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/binary-i386/
What is the explanation for this decision? It makes it impossible to
use rsync to update the packages list. (Perhaps this was actually the
motivation for the change, but shouldn't it be up to the administrators
of each mirror whether or not they want to allow rsync access?)
Some related questions:
-- what is the purpose of the "Packages.diff/" directory which has
appeared in the "testing" and "unstable" archives? Is there some piece
of software which makes use of this for updating the packages lists?
-- is it possible that the "Packages.gz" files could be compressed using
the gzip "--rsyncable" option? Or is this already the case?
-- has there been any progress towards providing zsync access to the
archives? It would seem that this would result in greatly reduced data
traffic on the network servers, without increasing the computational
load, as rsync does; I gather that this is the main objection to its
use.
Perhaps the answers to these questions are available in some obvious
place; I looked everywhere that occurred to me, but didn't find
anything.
-- Ian Bruce
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