On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 10:27:56AM +1000, Brian May wrote: > Instead could you skip step 1 and do it: > > 1. apt-get install foo > 1.1 apt queries SQL server "SELECT * FROM packages WHERE package=foo, > architecture=i386, operatingsystem=linux" > 1.2 apt gets result, and installs package. > > The biggest problem could be the load imposed by "apt-get upgrade" or > "apt-get dist-upgrade" or "dselect", I am not sure how these should be > done. Automatically extract the data according to some preset criteria > and put it in a number of compressed Packages file?
As long as that database is as robust and mirrored as the package archives, this should theoretically work. In fact, as I understand it, a database like this already exists, used by katie, madison and friends. The schema are in CVS. However, if something like this were set up for public access, LDAP might be a better place for it, since there is a standard application layer protocol for accessing all LDAP servers. -- - mdz
