[CentOS] yum vs up2date

Thu Sep 7 16:28:59 UTC 2006
Matt Hyclak <hyclak at math.ohiou.edu>

On Fri, Sep 08, 2006 at 12:18:28AM +0800, John Summerfield enlightened us:
> chrism at imntv.com wrote:
> 
> >>If you read my earlier posts, you might have noticed terms like 
> >>"download limits."
> >>
> >>Most users don't have "all you can eat" plans, and if they exceed 
> >>their quota they can be charged extra ($60-120 per gigabyte) or br 
> >>throttled back to modemesque speeds. 
> >
> >
> >What on Earth does that have to do with anything?  You've got poor 
> >connectivity or expensive connectivity or both in the "last mile" part 
> >of your link to the Internet.  How is changing the mirroring system 
> >going to help you or others like you?
> 
> You haven't shown how the mirroring system find a good mirror, and the 
> evidence Johnny gave shows it doesn't.
>

IT seems to me your definition of "good" and everyone else's is not the
same. You seem to think good means local to you - everyone else who doesn't
have last mile cost considerations (probably a majority of non-AU users)
just want to get their stuff the fastest - hence the fastest-mirror plugin.

I think that's pretty good evidence that for the majority of CentOS users,
that's a good system.

> There _are_ good mirrors, I wasted some time perusing broadband plans 
> and found another (only has I32 and AMD-64, but finding zSeries was a 
> surprise).
> 
> Your mirror system doesn't show them to users, and that's a problem to 
> those users whom it costs.
> 

We can't show them to users if we don't know about them. We aren't mind
readers, contrary to popular belief.

> 
> _I_ think Debian handles mirrors pretty well, it lets me specify country 
> and gives me a choice, and the names I see mean something.
> 

http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=13

> Those Centos names might mean something to someone, but from here they 
> just looked like someone chose random (or maybe consecutive) letters to 
> differentiate their names. When I believed they are Australian, I tried 
> to match them to Australian localities, but failed.


There may be a valid point here. I don't help manage the centosX servers, so
I am unaware if they frequently change locations, etc. If they are
relatively static, then perhaps a naming scheme that indicates country or
continent of origin would be useful. But again - I don't think most people
care. If a server half a world away is faster, I'm going to use that one.

Matt

-- 
Matt Hyclak
Department of Mathematics 
Department of Social Work
Ohio University
(740) 593-1263