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

[Laurent Martelli <martelli@iie.cnam.fr>]

>>>>> "Philip" == Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> writes:

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

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

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

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

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

We could at least check that the diff is not null. I'm thinking about
the xfree86 packages, which seem to be all upgraded at each
modification of the source package. 

-- 
Laurent Martelli
martelli@iie.cnam.fr