Re: Number of Debian packages [was Re: iMatix Open Source software]

[Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>]

Robert Thomson <robert.thomson@studentmail.newcastle.edu.au> writes:

> There should be an rsync option for Packages.gz in apt, imho..  Assuming of
> course, rsync does indeed give a sufficient benefit.. and enough mirrors
> support it.

That would have to be an rsync of Packages, not Packages.gz, since
rdiff doesn't do it's thing with compressed files.

Given that we do know what the data is, it might be simpler to take
advantage of that, rather than using rsync.

Perhaps we could produce diff files every day, although it might be
tough to get APT to determin which diff file(s) one actually needed to
download.

At least that way, we could have the process that builds the Packages
file making inteligent decisiions about how worthwhile the diff file
was, so that if there were massive changes, it just gets rid of all
the diffs.

Cheers, Phil.