[arch-general] Making pacman check multiple repos

[Ryan Sims]

2009/12/11 Ng Oon-Ee <ngoonee at gmail.com>:
> On Sat, 2009-12-12 at 02:13 +0100, Heiko Baums wrote:
>> Am Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:58:17 +0800
>> schrieb Ng Oon-Ee <ngoonee at gmail.com>:
>>
>> > Because sometimes all the mirrors listed in mirrorlist will not have
>> > the file, if its just been uploaded. Also not everyone stays
>> > up-to-the-minute with updates, judging by the "updated after a month"
>> > posts we see once in a while.
>> >
>> > I'm concerned about the last bit, if a package was just uploaded and
>> > only exists on one mirror, everyone who updates and has that package
>> > in the period between its uploading and its appearance on their local
>> > mirrors will 'fall-back' on varying mirrors (lengthening the update
>> > process) and all end up on the poor main server (or Tier 1/2 mirrors).
>> > Bad for both the mirror bandwidth as well as most probably much slower
>> > for the user, who could probably just wait a day or so for the update
>> > to come to his (faster, presumably) local mirror.
>>
>>
>> Wouldn't it be possible to first upload the packages and update the db
>> files when the packages on the mirrors (at least on several mirrors)
>> are updated?
>>
>> If I have such a "problem" that a package is on no mirrors, which
>> doesn't happen often, I usually abort the system update and wait one
>> day. I think that's the normal and easiest way of solving this issue.
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Heiko
>
> The few mirrors which sync first would have quite much higher bandwidth
> usage =).

It may be that natural selection is already producing this result: for
instance, I just recently tried a bunch of different mirrors until I
found one that was up to date. So people may be doing this already
manually.

-- 
Ryan W Sims