Hi! Would it be feasible to add something like a package cache to Debian?
This way only a minimal Debian system would be installed locally on the hard disk. All other packages are fetched only when used. For example, user Joe sets his package cache to 400MB and installs Openoffice. The installation lasts one second because only a few symlinks are created. When Joe uses Openoffice for the first time, All necessary files are fetched from the Internet and put in the package cache. So the first startup will be slow. The next time all necessary files are on the disk and Openoffice starts as usual. The package cache is managed with a last-recently-used (LRU) strategy. So all the packages Joe normally uses are in the cache. When the cache overflow a package is deleted on the disk. Joe can "pin" some packages into the cache to avoid statup slowdown. With a package cache a normal Debian installation would not be hundreds of megabytes of gigabytes after a few months/years of usage (package installation) but only 400MB and Joe doesn't have to manually remove packages when his hard disk is full. I know disk space is cheap but having hundreds of megabytes wasted for gnome pixmaps I never see or fonts i never use is annoying. Thanks, Gonsolo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]