mirrors vs. time taken by 'smart update'

[Pascal Bleser]

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Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
> On SUSE 10.1 the latest 0.50rc1-4 tried to install mirrors for
> various channels.  I had to tell it "NO!"

Why did you "had to tell it NO!" ?
I only add fast mirrors (heanet.ie, belnet.be, skynet.be, switch.ch, ...).

> I'm on a slow dial-up line.  Already, when I run 'smart update',
> it typically takes more than 30 minutes for that to complete.
> [On SUSE 9.3, 'apt-get update' typically took less than 15 min.]

That is probably related to the type of repository.
RPM-MD uses gzipped XML, which is somewhat large than using something
plain text or binary (I don't remember what apt is using).
yast2 uses plain text, but unfortunately, the metadata files are
currently uncompressed (for whatever reason).

> I'm afraid that if my system had to download even more repository
> indexes (for those additional mirrors) each time their respective
> repository contents were changed, it might take &deity; knows how
> long to perform an 'update'.

It is still the _same_ metadata, never mind what mirror you are using.
It's not because a channel has 5 mirrors that smart downloads the
metadata 5 times. It just does once, and circulates over the mirror it
uses each time.

cheers
- --
  -o) Pascal Bleser     http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
  /\\ <pascal.bleser at skynet.be>       <guru at unixtech.be>
 _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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