rsync and rawhide

[Kevin Fenzi]

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>>>>> "Jeremy" == Jeremy Portzer <jeremyp at pobox.com> writes:

Jeremy> On Fri, 2003-10-17 at 10:54, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>> Chris Ricker (kaboom at gatech.edu) said: > Now that the fedora
>> process is opening up development a bit more, I suspect > more
>> people are frequently downloading rawhide. Has there been any
>> thought > about making it available usably over rsync?
>> 
>> Some of the mirrors that mirror it may make it available over
>> rsync.
>> 

Jeremy> Bill, I think you snipped the most important part of Chris's
Jeremy> message.  While the current repository is indeed available
Jeremy> over rsync at various mirrors, it is not very useable.  This
Jeremy> is because the filenames change for each new RPM posted, so
Jeremy> rsync downloads a completely new file.

Jeremy> If the rsync tree was built into ISOs, or some other larger
Jeremy> archive files that could be loopback-mounted, it would be a
Jeremy> better situation for rsync.  It can then check for differences
Jeremy> in the old and new versions and only download the differences.

Someone the other day was telling me that with updates for SuSe you
could pull down all the new rpms, or just pull down changes between
the updated rpm and your current version... 

Ah, there they are... called 'patch rpms'.
From:

http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/updates/90_i386.html

"New: Patch RPMs

As of now we are offering so called Patch RPM packages. A Patch RPM
updates an already installed RPM. It only contains files which have
changed - therefore it is (much) smaller than the complete RPM
package. Prerequisite for installation is an already installed basic
RPM. The packages included on the SUSE LINUX 9.0-CDs/DVD are
considered as basic RPMs.  If you want to update an already installed
package, please download the smaller Patch RPM package."

Something like this would be very handy for keeping up with rawhide,
saving redhat bandwith, and making more people use it as it became
smaller/faster/easer to do. 

Anyone know how they do those? Would that be hard to implement?

kevin
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