Ian Bruce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Some related questions: > > -- what is the purpose of the "Packages.diff/" directory which has > appeared in the "testing" and "unstable" archives? Is there some piece > of software which makes use of this for updating the packages lists?
apt-get (experimental only iirc) uses this to only download changes since the last update. This has been brewing for a long time and was previously available from people.d.o/~aba. It is now integrated into tiffany. > -- is it possible that the "Packages.gz" files could be compressed using > the gzip "--rsyncable" option? Or is this already the case? Not sure about the rsyncable but it contains the timestamp and possibly file permissions or something as gzip does. Running a gzip Packages localy does not give an identical result. For debmirror I rsync the Packages.gz, gunzip, rsync the Packages, bzip2, rsync the Packages.bz2 (all only if the md5sums don't match) > -- has there been any progress towards providing zsync access to the > archives? It would seem that this would result in greatly reduced data > traffic on the network servers, without increasing the computational > load, as rsync does; I gather that this is the main objection to its > use. zsync uses http so you already have access. What is missing are the checksum files. Also, last I checked, zsync didn't yet have support to sync the contents of a deb as opposed to syncing the compressed data itself. Before that the savings are minimal at best. MfG Goswin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]