Distribution method - could there be a better way?

[John Summerfield]

On Saturday 20 November 2004 08:19, David Fletcher wrote:
> It has occurred to me that there

See www.debian.org, follow linksregarding downloadng and read up on Jigdo.

Jigdo, as used by Debian, takes an ISO and splits out a couple of files one of 
which is a skeleton (template) for the original file.

Users download the templates and run Jigdo to fill them out from one or more 
sources.

SOurces can be another ISO (maybe of a previous version - think Nahant) and 
one or more mirrors.

The result is as you would expect, md5sum-perfect.

It would be perfectly feasible to distribute just the templates and the rpms 
and other bigger files required to complete the ISOs.

Not only that, but templates
CD ISOs
DVD ISOs sans source
DVD ISOs inc source
If size warrants it, DL-sized ISOs.

Nahant is actually quite a good example. It comes in four versions; one 
different first ISO for each and then four or five common.

For approx the same amount of downloading I could have four DVDs instead of 
eight or nine CDs and each DVD would be complete in itself.





-- 
Cheers
John