On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 13:12 -0700, Collins Richey wrote:
Comments for this and the preceding post:
- Paying for Red Hat does not resolve the problem as I described it.
The Red Hat service provides for big bucks very slow, low bandwith access to it's updates. It's like watching paint dry when I have to download updates at work. I'll stick with free but erratic delivery if those are the choices. YOU DO NOT GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
First off, I differ with you on the performance.
Secondly, you _will_ get packages that have been integrated tested together. I have no complaints with CentOS repositories in general, but Red Hat is the upstream provider, and they've typically done an excellent job for my systems.
- The local mirror and sync process is certainly an approach if you
have the patience (or the right parameters? I have no experience) to keep retrying until you eventually get past the stuck point. Also, I don't have a lot of machines to maintain, and this is only an occasional pain. It's only a real pain when I let a machine (like my laptop) get very back level on maintenance.
If you have just a couple systems, it's worth the local mirror. I maintain my own Fedora Core, Extras, Livna, CentOS and RHEL mirrors at both home and work. And I put forth nearly *0* manual effort in the process.
It's very nice to have the packages directly to use.
- I started my rant with praise, and I continue the praise. CentOS is
one of (if not the) best enterprise Linux offerings. That being said, the software delivery (including Dag which is not a part of CentOS but which is relied on by a lot of folks) is not up to the reliability level that I have experienced elsewhere. For example, I ran Gentoo
(How come I knew Gentoo was coming? ;-)
for years, and I seldom found this type of problem getting updates even though the volume of downloads (source) is much higher than for CentOS and Dag (binary).
Gentoo is a _ports_ based distribution system, _not_ a packages one. It's like comparing apples and oranges -- Gentoo and Fedora-based (or Debian-based for that matter) are _not_ comparable.
E.g., Gentoo does _not_ maintain some of the software on their site. They reference other sites. It's like buying from a reseller that has various warehouse around the country v. a reseller that drop-ships from other distributors.
If you like Gentoo's approach, you should stick with it. It has many, many advantages. It also throws some things on the end-integrator. I can't tell you which is better for your needs, but just know there are certain things to Gentoo that are not applicable to Fedora, CentOS or even Debian for that matter.
For example, I've been maintaining a Ubuntu system for several months alongside of CentOS. I very rarely encounter this type of problem with Ubuntu updates.
And Ubuntu (and like Gentoo in some places -- although Gentoo's "ports" approach avoids much of it), _illegally_ distributes some packages. Things that you won't find in Debian, Fedora, CentOS, etc... Things you might have to go to DAG or another repository.
You're really crossing a lot of things that CentOS can't address for both legal and design considerations. You can wish and hope and that's all it will ever be.
Please don't waste your breath saying I should go elsewhere. I will continue to use CentOS and to recommend it to my friends. It's a great product.
Then _understand_ some of the limitations of the distribution system with those advantages.
IMO, this is purely a mechanical problem. Whatever the methods, other FOSS providers manage to avoid this type of erratic delivery. I don't have a clue how. I have no experience setting up or maintaining a system of mirrors.
Which is why you are drawing the conclusions you are. As I said before, you're comparing things that work very, very differently -- as well as some of the legal issues CentOS wishes to avoid.
I'm on the fifth attempt this morning to get through about 200 packages, and I don't think the results would have been much different if I were trying to sync a local mirror. This isn't even the post-new-update-rush, for $DEITY sake.The first 3 attempts hung totally at retrieving a man update. The next attempt waded through about 80 more packages and then hung. The final attempt is trying many mirrors again and not getting there again. I've changed my mirror settings a few times, but there does not appear to be an ideal solution. Thus my frustration.
I'm sorry you're frustrated. We all get frustrated at times.
But you're making comparisons that are _not_ just "purely mechanical problem[s]." Please _avoid_ doing that. It does _no_good_ to openly complain about something the project can do nothing about. ;->
-- Bryan
P.S. I too maintain some of the other distros you speak of. There are many differences involved. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I just ask you to remember that you may not be taking everything into consideration that might be involved -- distribution-wise, legal-wise, etc...