wouldn't tarball snapshots be nice to have?

[Kuba Ober]

On Friday 12 August 2005 06:56, Thiago Macieira wrote:
> Kuba Ober wrote:
> >> However, often a user with limited internet access wants to get the
> >> latest version of some app which fixes some bugs he can't work
> >> around. Like if he has KDE 3.4.1 and then there is KDE 3.4.2 and he
> >> only needs KPDF from it, but downloading the whole KDE is very hard
> >> for him and getting via SVN means that in plain codes you need to
> >> download 10x more than if it was a tarball.
> >
> >AFAIK, svn works with compressed ssh just fine. I presume it's supposed
> > to handle compressed http as well. Maybe whatever web server you use to
> > sync with is not providing gzip/zlib compression?
>
> True, but the compression is not always enabled on the server because the
> load goes too high. Dirk had to turn it off on the main server just after
> the switch because it was getting no one anywhere.

Hmm, maybe the following could be done then:
1. Have the default ssh port support not encrypted stuff only.
2. Have a separate ssh port where highest level of gzip is enabled, where 
every connection has the bandwitdth limited to 64kbit/s, and where if the 
total bandwidth served with compression starts exceeding certain value, no 
compression is offered to new connections.

The 'certain value' of the bandwidth served would simply be say 50% of what 
gzip handles on that machine given all CPU. That number is trivial enough to 
obtain :)

That way:
1. Everyone is served w/o compression by default, so the server is not bogged 
down.
2. Everyone who has a real need for compression can spend a bit of time 
updating their defaults or whatever it is where they keep their svn server 
address, and they get the compression they need.

> And, besides, a compressed transfer will be gzip factor 3 or so, while a
> tarball will be bzipped2 factor 9. There's a big difference in size

Judging from the kernel sources that's some 25% difference on average. That's 
not too terrible, right? Asthe difference between uncompressed and compressed 
is in several 100s of percent, AFAIR? So the from bzip2 vs. gzip is an order 
of mangitude less than between uncompressed and compressed.

Kuba