I found some discussion in the archive on differential debs, starting at http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg-0012/msg00000.html To summarize, the proposal was to use xdelta to make "debiff" archives available. These would be kept on a Debian mirror as well as the latest version of a package. The debiff could be used by a client machine along with an old version of a package to create a package identical to the latest version, which could then be installed. This would mainly be of benefit to users with modems or other slow links. I personally think that this is an excellent idea that should be implemented in dpkg. I realize that it is not being done with the main distribution to allow mirrors to save disk space. However, adding this capability would allow other groups (e.g. Helixcode) to offer differential updates if they wanted. So why not add it? Jody BTW, this is cc to Tim Jansen, who originally proposed the debiff format, as I am not sure if he is still subscribed to this list. -- Jody McIntyre, jodym@oeone.com - OEone Corporation, Hull, Quebec, Canada
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