Re: Stop apt-get downloading same Packages.gz from different mirrors

[Karsten Heymann <karsten.heymann@gmx.de>]

* Hall Stevenson <hallstevenson@mindspring.com> [010810 17:35]:
> > * Hall Stevenson <hallstevenson@mindspring.com>
> > [010810 16:43]:
> > > > for up-to-date and for bandwith reasons i have
> > > > multiple debian mirrors in my sources.list, a close
> > > > one (which i hope is faster) and the official master
> > > > (which i believe is updated first):
> > >
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > > Now if i do 'dselect update' or 'apt-get update' most
> > > > of the time i see two 'Packages' files being
> > > > downloaded, which, if they are what i find in
> > > > /var/lib/apt/lists, are equal. Is there any possibility
> > > > or plan to stop this double download? (As you can
> > > > see i'm running woody, but i wouldn't mind installing
> > > > some - not too many! - packages from sid).
> > >
> > > I think it has to download the packages file from both
> > > sites in order to compare and see which has the newer
> > > packages available. Doesn't that make sense ?? If it
> > > gets the list from your close mirror and doesn't check
> > > the official site, you may always be a package-revision
> > > behind...
> > >
> >
> > Wouldn't a checksum be enough?
> 
> Doesn't a checksum just tell you it's *valid* or official
> package ?? I don't think it knows nor cares which is newer.
> 
> Hall

I only want to know if the package *list* files of two mirrors are equal
or not. They are about 1.2 MB now and i do apt-get update at least once
a day. I just hate waiting the double time. As apt-get update skips
unchanged Packages.gz files already these checksums already have to exist.

Any new opinions?

Karsten

-- 
Karsten Heymann                      <karsten.heymann@gmx.de>
Netzwerkverwaltung              <karsten@ecology.uni-kiel.de>
Forschungsstelle für Ökosystemtechnik        Universität Kiel