Re: apt-cacher
On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 06:46:18PM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 04:57:06PM -0500, Jacob S wrote:
> > On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 17:37:33 -0400
> > "Roberto C. Sanchez" <roberto@familiasanchez.net> wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 05:09:22PM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > > > Now that I'll be upgrading my lan's server to sarge, I plan also
> > > > to install apt-cacher on it, so my other machines won't have to do
> > > > as much long-haul net traffic.
> > > >
> > > > Can I start the woody->sarge upgrade by updating, first,
> > > > aptitude and perl (that seems to be conventional wisdom)
> > > > then installing sarge's apt-cacher, and then pointing
> > > > the sources.list to apt-cacher running on the very machine
> > > > that is being upgraded to sarge?
> > > >
> > > > In the future, when further updates take place, will apt-cacher
> > > > know how to update itself while it's being used to download and
> > > > cache its replacement?
> > >
> > > Since you are serving machines on a network, you really want
> > > apt-proxy.
> >
> > Apt-cacher serves the same purpose as apt-proxy and works just as well,
> > in my experience. I switched to it before apt-proxy v2 hit Sarge and
> > found it to be better than apt-proxy v1 and it would start streaming the
> > file faster (helping to avoid timeouts that I had problems with in
> > apt-proxy).
> >
> > Since you stated that apt-proxy is better, do you have some evidence or
> > a reason for your statement, or is it just preference?
> >
> > HTH,
> > Jacob
>
> I'd
> very much like to know this too. What are the relative merits of
> apt-proxy and apt-cacher. I hadn't realized there were two such
> programs.
>
> --hendrik
>
I have used both apt-proxy and apt-cacher. Both work, but apt-cacher
is much simpler and easier, and when I last looked apt-proxy was not
really part of Sarge.
OTOH, I think apt-proxy handles synonyms for distributions better than
apt-cacher. In apt-cacher, there is a problem with switching from etch
to testing, or testing to etch. Apt-cacher seems not to preserve the
information that allows the actual apt-get instance on a host to
recognize that these are merely synonyms for the same thing. As a
consequence, if you do such a switch, you get to download the same stuff
a second time. But how often do you do that? No more than once, if
you are using apt-cacher ;-).
Apt-cacher seems to me to be a tiny, and beautifully simple hack, that
solves the problem. It works for me.
JM$.02.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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