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Hi there, |
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|
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I’ve been using Gentoo Linux for about a year now and one thing that has |
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been bothering me is that every time a new kernel comes out portage |
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downloads the full version of the new kernel instead of a patch. Since |
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every kernel gets stored in distfiles it would be very easy to use the |
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older kernel and only download the patch. |
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|
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For example the 2.6.x series: |
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linux-2.6.0.tar.bz2 32476 KB 32 MB |
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linux-2.6.1.tar.bz2 32461 KB 32 MB |
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linux-2.6.2.tar.bz2 33106 KB 32 MB |
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linux-2.6.3.tar.bz2 33469 KB 33 MB |
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linux-2.6.4.tar.bz2 33581 KB 33 MB |
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|
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linux-2.6.*.tar.bz2 165093 KB 161 MB |
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|
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Since portage has downloaded all 5 full kernels for me I’ve downloaded |
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160MB of kernel sources. |
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|
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If we had simply patched the allready stored 2.6.0 kernel it would have |
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been only 40MB: |
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linux-2.6.0.tar.bz2 32476 KB 32 MB |
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patch-2.6.1.bz2 760 KB 1 MB |
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patch-2.6.2.bz2 2268 KB 2 MB |
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patch-2.6.3.bz2 2006 KB 2 MB |
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patch-2.6.4.bz2 2210 KB 2 MB |
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linux.*+patch.* 39720 KB 39 MB |
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|
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I’ve tried this myself and it’s as easy as: |
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tar -xvjpf linux-2.6.0.tar.bz2 && cd linux-2.6.0 |
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patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.1 |
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patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.2 |
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patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.3 |
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patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.4 |
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cd .. && mv linux-2.6.0 linux-2.6.4 |
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|
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Since bandwith doesn’t grow on trees and the patching doesn’t take long, |
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saving far over a gigabyte every 10 users it seems to me this is well |
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worth it. I understand we can’t patch forever, but every 5 kernels or so |
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is a big saving in bandwith. |
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|
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Comments? What do you think? |
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|
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FrostFire |
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|
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-- |
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gentoo-portage-dev@g.o mailing list |
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