Re: Package Lists and Size, linux.debian.devel Cor> Some of the servers run rsync, which works well for the Packages Cor> file, but does not work for the packages themselves.
OK, will putting rsync in one's sources.list as you say below just affect the Packages file fetching, or also the fetching of the packages themselves? How can I switch on only the former? Cor> Other mirrors do not run rsync since it puts extra CPU load on Cor> their server. Perhaps you could find/use a mirror with public Cor> rsync access. To do this, just replace http with rsync in your Cor> sources.list I don't see this documented. If I upgrade (apt: Installed: 0.5.4 Candidate: 0.5.5.1, Need to get 12.4MB) do I get this new feature? Is there a link to just the changelog so I can see if they added this before I spend the modem time downloading? http://packages.debian.org doesn't seem to have links to changelogs, not are they in separate files on the mirrors. Cor> There are technical solutions to precomputing the diffs used by Cor> rsync, as well as solutions for diffing .gz files. E.g. I was Cor> able to perform apt-get update, upgrade in about half the time, Cor> but nobody has put in the work required to get these nicely Cor> integrated into the current tool set, is it in apt now? Cor> set up on the servers with simple HOWTOs for mirrors. or you mean apt can do it, but not all the servers run an rsync daemon? What about http://home.tiscali.cz:8080/~cz210552/aptrsync.html is it now obsolete?