Re: Packages file under version control
I am fortunate to have an account on debian.linux.org.tw, I.e. a
mirror. Maybe I can make a script to just do a diff of the Packages
file and then just download this diff over my modem?
I hate downloading megabytes just because I want to upgrade some puny
package without resorting to dpkg.
I would use ssh to run a script that on the mirror diffs the current
Packages with a copy of Packages from the last time I ran the script.
Then I would scp this diff.gz over my modem, and then apply it to the
Packages on my home computer. Does that make sense? Is there some
modem overhead due to being forced to use scp as that's all I can use
there? Don't tell me to learn some complex new software just to
retrieve this one file, though.
Before I noticed this thread in the debian weekly news, I was going to send:
Subj: Packages.gz too big for modem users
Gentlemen, I found I could reduce Packages.gz files by half if I
ripped out Descriptions. Makefile:
#see how shorter Package files are if we rip out descriptions
no_desc: /var/lib/apt/lists/debian.linux.org.tw_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-i386_Packages
awk '/^$$/;/^Description:/,/^$$/{next};1' $?
You see, doing apt-get update is too much for us modem users,
especially when all we then want to install is a measly few Kbyte
package. Hence, I now mostly just download the .debs and use dpkg -i.
Anyways, apparently one could even strip out more unnecessary fields,
just leaving the dependency info so apt-get would still work... one
would do this stripping on a remote server, and use one's modem to
download the stripped Packages.gz file, every time one would want to
do a apt-get update, perhaps only getting the real Packages.gz file
once a month, so "apt-cache show" would still show some semi-fresh
description info.
Anyway, I'm just thinking of ways costly phoneline users could use
debian's package system better... I'm not sure if my ideas actually
work, i.e. I haven't actually fed these files into apt yet.
--
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780
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