On 06/20/2013 06:22 AM, Chris Bannister wrote:
I think the number one reason why Linux package management via Torrent never took off is because it is frankly an incredibly terrible idea.On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 03:19:25PM +1000, Charlie wrote:I don't know enough about this hope someone can help:My ISP CEO suggests that this address is BitTorrent:http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main non-free contrib Is that correct?No, he is confused. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/7792 There are no trackers involved with apt-get, although it would be a far more efficient method (bandwidth wise). The downside is that you probably wouldn't be able to update/upgrade your laptop at your local library etc. because they tend to block BitTorrent traffic. I think I remember reading about a discussion of implementing a system where apt-get only downloads the changes to files. It wouldn't suprise me if something like this was implemented at some point way down the track.
Look, peer-to-peer is a great idea on paper, but it has several huge strikes against it:
1. ISPs hate P2P even for legitimate uses, so if a Linux distro would go torrent on package managers those behind draconian ISPs will be out of luck, leading to less users.
2. EVERY package will become subject to the "popularity contest" problem in peer to peer. You'll likely have no problem installing common apps, but if you like to use something more specialized or obscure but still tracked in the official repository, you'll be lucky to get a decent speed at all, to say nothing about the possibility you'll NEVER get the package. This is why torrents are fast in theory but dreadfully slow in practice (I have never in all my time seen a single torrent beat the speeds of straight up downloading.)
3. It's efficient bandwidth only on the PROVIDER'S servers. Torrents are notorious for gobbling up download bandwidth on actual people downloading. I don't want to slow my entire network to a crawl just downloading a kernel, thank you.
4. You're labeled a leecher just because you don't want to spend several hours UPLOADING a package that took you upwards of half an hour to get in the first place. If I were to install Debian via torrent I'd be spending MONTHS clogging up my upward channels trying to get to a 1.0 ratio I'll never achieve because I'll be updating packages still.
Now, I do like the idea of updates being BINARY PATCHES to the packages installed. The downside being that if you need to fall back to an older version you might be out of luck if simply unpatching won't work.