[arch-general] Making pacman check multiple repos

[Brendan Long]

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 =).
>
> The concern then is that in the period of time between uploading of
> packages and updating of db, the db would point to a package (foo-1.3)
> while the mirror would only have the new version (foo-1.4), since I
> don't think many mirrors keep multiple copies of the same package
> (schlunix I know off, any others?). So that would break updating as
> well, just in a different direction, and this would not be recoverable
> from.
>
>
Maybe a better idea would be to make pacman keep track of the last time it
got an updated package list, and if it's beyond a certain point, it starts
checking other mirrors (maybe optional "No updates have been found in 5
days, would you like to scan other mirrors for updates?").