phenomenal! those are some really nice improvements to Factory! has it really been a year? :)
On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Peter Poeml <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > today, a long-awaited and longly prepared change hits openSUSE Factory > (Factory = the development branch of openSUSE). > aria2c is now the default download backend used by the package > management client. Thus, metalinks are used for everything, except some > security-critical files (which are delivered directly and shall not be > sent to mirrors, transparently negotiated). > > I don't say this to boast how great openSUSE is, but rather because this > advance marks a special moment for me: > > Exactly one year ago, I got mail from a guy named Anthony Bryan, who > spotted that I had mentioned metalinks in a talk at the Fosdem > conference. At the time, it was just something I heard about and > something that I intended to explore in my context. I had already > designed a plan for how to do a knowledge transfer the openSUSE download > client, that resembled Metalinks remarkably by nature. > > This was the beginning of a great and intense collaboration; weeks later > I had implemented the metalink generator in MirrorBrain, reformulated > the plan for the download client to use Metalinks, a prototype became a > GSoC project, and much much more, most of which you have followed. > Mandriva and ArchLinux have since switched to use Metalinks as well, for > package updates, and Fedoras MirrorManager also uses them for some > purposes. We are working on an Internet draft etc. > > I just find it great to see this happening, after this one year. > > Thank you all! > Peter > > > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Peter Poeml <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:52:29 +0100 > Subject: Re: [opensuse-project] Proposal for a community based testing team > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 04:03:57PM +1000, Eric Springer wrote: >> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Gerald Pfeifer <[email protected]> wrote: >> > What prevents you from using FACTORY? >> > >> > (Serious question. If there is anything, we should address it.) >> > >> > Gerald >> >> Yes, agreed.It needs to be easier. Easier to download. Easier to >> update to. Easier to do updates, and those updates need to be more >> reliable (in terms, of actually downloading). > > We are about to see significant improvement here; with changes > implemented during the last weeks, and just hitting Factory now, Factory > should be improved in several regards: > > * smaller deltas = less to download, due to "buildcompare" mechanism > (comparing built packages with previous versions for actual changes) > http://news.opensuse.org/2009/02/05/more-efficient-factory-development/ > > * http://download.opensuse.org/factory/ keeps the previous package > version available for a grace period. This gives ongoing > updates/downloads a chance to complete successfully, even though > Factory is being republished > E.g. in http://download.opensuse.org/factory/repo/oss/suse/i586/ > you'll note the resulting package duplication > > * new, radically improved download backend in zypper/YaST, > http://en.opensuse.org/Libzypp/Failover > http://duncan.mac-vicar.com/blog/archives/507 > > using aria2c and metalinks, which offers several helpful features: > - without user interaction, it deals with mirrors that are > incomplete, halfway updated or broken in some way, by simply > switching to another one > - it can download faster, using parallel connections to > multiple mirrors and maximizing bandwidth utilization > No more worries about the "best mirror" > - error checking of downloads is already while in transit; not > after downloading everything and then trying to use it. > > * mirror selection with stronger exploitation network locality > > If a client is in the same network as a mirror, it will automatically > be assigned to that one mirror (not just looking on country level): > http://mirrorbrain.org/news_items/2.6_network_topological_mirror_selection > > A further, planned, change is to increase world-wide availability of > Factory by tighter integrating it publishing and its mirror syncing. > > This altogether should make Factory tracking a pleasant experience. > > At least the downloading part, which is the first step to using it ;) > >> [...] Then the system should >> never be completely broken, and nor packages that aren't READY for >> *testing* be pushed. (put them in their own repo, until it's deemed >> that they're fine, and the maintainers are looking for *testing*). >> >> In short, try run factory as your main distro for a month -- and the >> problems testers have should be pretty obvious =) > > Amen. > > Peter > -- > Contact: [email protected] (a.k.a. [email protected]) > #opensuse-mirrors on freenode.net > Info: http://en.opensuse.org/Mirror_Infrastructure > > SUSE LINUX Products GmbH > Research & Development > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > > > -- (( Anthony Bryan ... Metalink [ http://www.metalinker.org ] )) Easier, More Reliable, Self Healing Downloads --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Metalink Discussion" group. 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