Re: apt-style updates vs. git-style full-tree snapshots
--- On Sat, 5/26/12, Daniel Hartwig <mandyke@gmail.com> wrote:
> Specifying squeeze is like "branchname-versionumber" and keeps you
> on the "debian-6.0" branch. By requesting stable instead, for
> example, you will always have the latest version of the stable
> branch
http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/Release is the same as http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/Release, and it's outdated. http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze-updates/Release contains the latest updates, but it doesn't contain the whole project, just the updates, so to get the whole updated project, you have to get both, and patch squeeze using squeeze-updates (though apt automates this). The git model is that one tree contains the full updated project.
Using an outdated full tree plus current updates is more complex than just using a full current tree. It's similar to backup systems with occasional full backups and more frequent incremental and/or differential backups, in which restoring the latest state of the system (or any older state) requires remembering which backups to restore in which order. More modern systems including git, ddar, and bup are designed to record the full tree each time. So, my idea is that having the Debian project record the full tree each time, and eliminate stable-updates, would provide the same general benefit of simplicity that the more modern versioning and backup systems provide, though apt-get would need to be changed to download just the changes to e.g. http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/main/binary-i386/Packages.bz2 rather than download the full file each time, since it's big, and it would need to be compressed with --rsyncable to facilitate that. Or, maybe there
would be no worthwhile benefit; my question is, is this a good idea, or does the outdated full tree plus updates model have better benefits?
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