[Apt-zip-devel] List of packages to download and downloading packages

[PEDRO MACANAS VALVERDE]

De: Giacomo A. Catenazzi
Enviado el: mar 18/03/2008 13:44
Para: apt-zip-devel
Asunto: Re: [Apt-zip-devel] Exporting USEMD5SUMS


PEDRO MACANAS VALVERDE wrote:
>
>> To download, the server could generate an hmtl page with http:// <http:///>  links
> included to the mirrors with the packages
>
>> So, downloading would be very easy: one could also use a spider for
> automatization.

>This is the key feature/problem.

>I don't think we could give user link to 50-100 packages,
and require that user will click every link.

I agree. Although for a small list can be a solution (4-5 packages to establish the Internet connection with some driver and daemon packages  and later update/upgrade all the distro). 

>But to do to in such manner is very simple on server side.

>So now I'll found two possibilities:
>- generate one (or few more) tar file.

This can be very slow to download, if it includes a lot of packages. We can, in any case, use the METALINK that one can pause and resume interrupted downloads (using also Windows and Linux programs for Metalink): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalink 

>- javascript that will download automatically the files.

It is important include this pause and resume buttons / options. Perhaps the user only can download the packages in more than one time /day.

>I don't like the "spiders" idea. It will mean that user need "wget",

No, it does not necessarily, one can use other spiders than wget ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler , including plug-ins for firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/es-ES/firefox/addon/1616 ). In any case, we can offer more than one solution.

The main problem with wget is that you cannot use it in Windows without big problems (you have to install Cygwin). But a compact  spider program could solve the problem (i.e a metalink program, that can be  easily installed in Windows and in Linux, because there are lots of them in both O.S.es).

>but it will be difficult to windows user, and we want to avoid
extra tools on connected machine.

This is a good principle and one can try it first. One can offer the spider as an option, in a second stage.

>But probably this will be the first step of the prototype:
build a list of packages to download.


I totally agree.  This would include a matching with the packages already installed / downloaded  by the user in his/her dpkg system 

>The second step will be to tar the files or to execute the javascript.


Which functionalities could be used in the Javascript to download the packages ?.

Good work. 

Pedro.




 

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