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Re: Question: Packages.xz and Contents-<arch>.xz



On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:10:13 +0900
Hideki Yamane <henrich@debian.or.jp> wrote:

>  Just a question, is there any reason not provide Packages.xz and
>  Contents-<arch>.xz in package repository? I cannot find any information
>  about it, so please tell me.
 
A stable release freeze is not the time to go changing stuff like
this ... all the tools which use and generate the Packages.gz and
Contents-<arch>.gz files would need support for .xz in place *in
current stable* before this could be changed permanently.

Does apt have support already? If it doesn't, then it's too late to
consider this for Wheezy which means that the stable release into which
this support could be implemented is Jessie which means that the
change couldn't be made until after the Jessie release.

The AptToSid derivative is already using .xz, so maybe there is
support in apt, I haven't checked (but a quick run through the
apt-cache manpage doesn't mention it):

http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/aptosid/debian/dists/sid/main/binary-amd64/

A bit of testing using that mirror could provide real data for this
question.

>  I think provide Packages.xz rather than bzip2 is better choice (if we can).

It's worth exploring but the first steps are to test with existing
repositories using .xz and to generate a second repository with
only .xz files and see what breaks...

e.g. it looks from a cursory glance at the manpage that reprepro can
update from repositories which use .xz compression but whether it can
then produce .xz instead of .gz would need testing / input from
Bernhard....

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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