On 2013-02-22, Dmitry Smirnov wrote: > On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:12:05 Antoine Beaupré wrote: >> Bootstrapping bitcoin takes a looong time in Debian. I started the >> client yesterday and after more than 24h, it was still processing blocks >> from november 2012. > > With the release of Bitcoin 0.8.0 bootstrapping become much faster so IMHO we > don't need to do anything. It simply doesn't worth troubles...
Indeed.
>> Shipping, or at least documenting the (in)famous bootstrap.dat file
>> would go a long way in improving this.
>>
>>[...]
>>
>> The file is 2.5GB, so it may be too big for Debian's archive, but it
>> seems to me this could still be useful, as it saves a lot of time.
>
> I think it is not a good idea. Peer-to-peer bootstrapping is great.
> It doesn't feel right to boost initial bootstrapping by providing data from
> centralised authority even if it is trusted.
Well, I don't think that's much of a problem, personnally. I would trust
more Debian than Pirate Bay for bootstrapping, really. :)
But it does feel odd that we need another p2p network to bootstrap
bitcoin, which is supposed to be a p2p network in itself.
> Besides Bitcoin network benefit from more clients staying online. Fast
> bootstrapping may not have a big impact for network but certainly won't help
> clients to share already received blocks during initial synchronisation.
Not sure I understand this...
But anyways, I also think shiping the bootstrap file is a bad idea,
especially now that bootstrapping works properly.
People can always fetch that data themselves. Maybe an update to the
README file?
A.
--
It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad; and it is better
still to sit with the good than alone. It better to speak to a seeker of
knowledge than to remain silent; but silence is better than idle words.
- Imam Bukhari
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