On Friday, January 21st, 2022 at 9:03 AM, Ludovic Courtès <l...@gnu.org> wrote:
> The database for 18K packages is quite big: > > --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- > > $ du -h /tmp/db* > > 389M /tmp/db > > 82M /tmp/db.gz > > 61M /tmp/db.zst > > --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- > [snip] > In terms of privacy, I think it’s better if we can avoid making > one request per file searched for. Off-line operation would be > sweet, and it comes with responsiveness; fast off-line search is > necessary for things like ‘command-not-found’ (where the shell > tells you what package to install when a command is not found). Offline operation is crucial, and I don't think it's desirable to download tens or hundreds of megabytes. What about creating & distributing a bloom filter per package, with members being file names? This would allow us to dramatically reduce the size of data we distribute, at the cost of not giving 100% reliable answers. We've established, though, that some information is better than none, and the uncertainty can be resolved by querying a web service or building the package locally and searching its directory.
