On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 01:30:51PM +0000, Michael Fothergill wrote: > > However, it does seem as though Etch AMD64 does share a reasonable number > of files in common with Etch i386....... > > My new question is this: > > If you look on the Debian installer page you see that distributions of the > OS for a variety of different architectures exist: > > [alpha] [amd64] [arm] [hppa] [i386] [ia64] [m68k] [mips] [mipsel] > [powerpc] [sparc] [s390] > > > > My question is this: > > What degree of common files would exist between all or certain sub groups > of these different architectures? > > Would there be enough in either all of them or a subset that it might make > sense to make a separate downloadable common iso file image or jigdo file > set that you could downnload from one common server address and then get > only the extra files needed to make up the entire distribution for the each > specific individual architecture from its own server site address? > > If so would this not save on server space allocation and download time?
I would assume, or at least trust, that if this was useful or helpful, it would be done behind-the-scenes by the people who maintain this portion of the debian infrastructure. > > My other question this is this. > > Is the reason that the number of common files to be found when comparing > the Sarge 3.1 release of Debian and e.g the Etch RC1 is very low a function > of the fact that huge changes have been made across the OS? > > Or is it that the underlying contents of a lot of files is identical to > those found in Etch but they have been given different names or small > changes have been made to them such that they are not absolutely identical > any longer? > Think about it: if anything within a package changes (even fixing a typo in a man page) then the version of the package changes. That's a new package. As I understand it, jigdo makes CD/DVD images out of packages off of the package mirrors. It doesn't look at what makes up a package and just grab the new man page. > Is it possible that Lenny could be written in such a way as to maximise the > reuse of identical files from the point of jigdo that are used in Etch in > such a way as not to undermine the innovative progress and develolpment of > Lenny? > > Could all the architecture releases of Lenny be designed to make maximum > use of jigdo in the ways I am describing or would it be a beaurocratic > nightmare or a waste of time with no benefit, or worse would it cock up and > interfere with the development of Lenny? > > If you think this a garbage idea feel free to say so. > I think it would break the atomic nature of packages and be asking jigdo not just make CD/DVDs from packages but make packages from individual files. I'm not saying it couldn't be done but it would in effect be a new distribution of Linux. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]