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Date:      Mon, 14 Oct 2002 01:16:53 +0300
From:      Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
Cc:        current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: HEADS UP: Old port recompiles needed (Re: Unknown symbol "__sF")
Message-ID:  <20021013221653.GA26225@hades.hell.gr>
In-Reply-To: <3DA9EA62.D337E8A0@mindspring.com>
References:  <20021013194319.7A31D2A88D@canning.wemm.org> <3DA9D95D.C1319A72@mindspring.com> <20021013205915.GK10829@hades.hell.gr> <3DA9EA62.D337E8A0@mindspring.com>

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On 2002-10-13 14:49, Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> > That's a commonly asked question, and a very good answer is in the FAQ :P
> > There are good reasons why the overworked snapshot servers do not
> > attempt to compress the ISO images, which btw contain mostly .tgz files.
>
> Alternately, instead of believing someone's opinion, we could ask
> the data in question:
>
> % ls -l
> 248643584 Sep 17 00:03 5.0-CURRENT-20020917-JPSNAP.iso
> 212988130 Oct 13 10:39 5.0-CURRENT-20020917-JPSNAP.iso.gz
>
> Compression gets rid of about 36MB.

How long did that take to compress though?  What load did the machine
that did the compression have?  Currently, the snapshots.jp.freebsd.org
machines build releases every 24 hours which last 4-9 hours.  I'm not
sure if the same machines could spare some cycles to compress the ISO
images, or the disk space to store almost duplicate copies of the same
ISO images twice (compressed, and uncompressed).  The best people to
ask about things like these are the jp.freebsd.org admins and not a
local compression program imho.

> That's 3.4 hours saved on a 28.8K modem download time, overall...
> a 14% reduction in size.
>
> I guess it's no wonder it's a frequently asked question.  Too bad
> it's not answered correctly in the FAQ.
>
> I think the correct answer is maybe "because the FAQ maintainers
> have broadband connections"...

No we don't.  My "ultrafast" connection is in fact a 28.8 Kbit/sec
dialup connection.  This is why I don't download entire ISO images,
but instead do FTP-installs.  So, there you go ;)

> PS: If the server is overworked, all you need to do is store the
> compressed version of the image on the server; I have no idea why
> you seem to believe that it needs to be compressed more than once,
> so whether or not the server is "overworked" is irrelevent to the
> compression, I think.

Not very irrelevant, as it might seem at first.  Because I'm not
talking about the FTP server that delivers the files, but about the
server that 'builds the snapshots'.

The donations list of freebsd.org lists requests for better, faster
release building machines for the Japan cluster.  If you really think
that you can help, I'd be glad to be proven wrong by a generous
donation to the guys who have saved my -current installation at home a
dozen times with their snapshots.

- Giorgos

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