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On 05/14/2011 10:57 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTim3P_vjGVf2K5ZGx7iv-UnNo1mOZQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">I think, but am not sure, that these three files are
per repo, not per<br>
<pre wrap="">package - i.e. you could have 1000 packages, and only have these three
files to describe all of them. In that case, I have no qualms with
there being 3 of them, as the current yum metadata format contains 10
files (not all of which get downloaded for every transaction)
Now if it's 2 files (since one of them is the currently existing
metadata) per package, that might be a bit of an issue :)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Oh okay, so then I'm talking about placing the extracted
cross-distro metadata/data that the <i>compose</i> server creates
into a cross-distro package file, besides creating the repo index.
Then you'd end up with both a cross-distro repo as well as
cross-distro package files. I know everyone is all about adding
repos and not individual files so that you get updates and blur the
line between downloading/installing/running apps, but there are many
reasons to have the user manipulate the individual packages too, for
transport, backup, network-less computers, wanting to stick to
specific versions of a program, hosting on regular file servers,
will be able to install programs even if a repository server was
offline, etc etc...so sooner or later I think it's definitely
something that needs to happen and wondered if anyone thought about
the format of those container files yet. Having the repo URL in the
package file so that users had the option of connecting to the repo
to download updated versions would be a nice option. A user's
package manager / software store could pop up and say, "This package
file contains a repository URL, would you like to scan it for
updated packages before installing this one?"<br>
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