Aaron Tiensivu <tiensivu@pilot.msu.edu> wrote:
>> o Ability to nuke source code that is not specific to your
>> configuration. Not necessarily a default option, but an
>> option, none-the-less.
Olaf> Split the architecture dependent parts off into separate
Olaf> distributions. Okay, we've had this before, but with the
Olaf> current kernel source in tar and feathers at way over 5 MB
Olaf> and the guarantee that you'll _never_ need a substantial
Olaf> portion of it, please reconsider.
Hi everyone!
If we split the source into separate distributions, then we stand the
chance that someone will mismatch them. It would also be nice to have
one central point which acts as root for the kernel mirroring tree,
rather then one set of mirrors for the non-architecture source, and
another (possibly less reliable) tree for each architecture
portion. This may be fine for development groups, who are in-the-know,
but it works against our popularity with the search-clueless general
public.
The solution used by the X version of Netscape (and other Unix
multi-platform products) is to create a directory for each version,
and a tar.gz file for each platform. The file contains the entire
distribution for that architecture. (I know: "Duh!"). What this does
is use more space on the mirror machines, but it cuts down on the
bandwidth needed to get a full source distribution which contains all
the source for your architecture in one file. It's a no brainer for
the user, as long as they know what machine they have.
The problem still to be solved with this is patches. I say we should
continue to make patches non-architecture oriented, since they are
small anyway, and have a pre-patch script which strips out the
portions of the patch which are meant for each architecture you
don't have. This keeps the regular patch program from emitting all
sorts of errors when it tries to patch architecture files which are
not present. It also keeps us from having to mirror 16-20 different
patchfiles on a per-version, (multiplied by) per-architecture basis.
The script to split the main source tree into the different
architecture .tar.gz files is trivial. I wouldn't mind switching into
one extra directory and picking the linux-i386.tar.gz file from among
the Sparc, HP, SGI, Mac, Alpha, AS400, Cray, and other files, especially
if it means I only have to download a couple of megs, instead of 8 or 10.
What do you think?
(BTW: I would love nothing better than showing IBM what freedom can do
by putting Linux on the AS400, and watching it become a significant
portion of the OS market.)
--- Andrew C. Esh mailto:andrew_esh@cnt.com http://www.mtn.org/~andrewes - ACE Home Page