On Sat, Aug 18, 2007 at 07:29:55PM +0200, Gonsolo wrote:
> Would it be feasible to add something like a package cache to Debian?
>
> This way only a minimal Debian system would be installed locally on
> the hard disk. All other packages are fetched only when used. For example,
> user Joe sets his package cache to 400MB and installs Openoffice.
> The installation lasts one second because only a few symlinks are created.
> When Joe uses Openoffice for the first time, All necessary files are fetched
> from the Internet and put in the package cache. So the first startup will be
> slow. The next time all necessary files are on the disk and Openoffice starts
> as usual.
[...]
Well, it could be implemented with a FUSE daemon, that you mount over
/usr for example, and which periodically fetches the Contents-<arch>.gz
file from a mirror. It the uses the Contents file to generate directory
listings. If some package tries to open() a file that is not already in
the original /usr filesystem, it will look into the Contents file to
determine which package contains the open()ed file, installs it, and
then lets the open() continue. It can also track usage information this
way. It's a daemon that you can start as root during boot, so users
don't need special privileges. Also, if you stop the daemon, the
original /usr filesystem becomes visible again, which can be used
without problems.
I'm not going to implement this though.
--
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org>
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature