From: jepstei@afterlife.ncsc.mil (John Epstein) Subject: Re: Distribution sugestion for gcc. Date: 6 Sep 1992 00:53:03 GMT
In article <1992Sep05.170344.14838@donau.et.tudelft.nl> wolff@hal.et.tudelft.nl (Rogier Wolff) writes:
>Hi,
>
>I have been thinking about the method gcc is being distributed.
>(partly because I had problems myself, and I seem to be not the only
>one)
>
>Anyway, how about creating a tar file with EVERYTHING in it. This could
>be done in two ways:
>1) all the files that are in there now + an install script.
>2) ALL that gcc needs. Even the links etc that the install script makes.
>
>Option one simply guarantees that you have all the files necessary.
>Option two even eliminates the install script. (Tar should be capable
>of tarring and restoring symlinks and hardlinks. right?)
>
>Now by this time everybody will be screaming that this will result in
>a very large file. This can be accomodated by providing two versions:
>one in a large file. The second split into chunks of about 1.2 megabytes.
>People can then split the large file into pieces if they want, or
>keep it in one chunk if possible. The smaller files can easily be transported
>on floppies.
>
>--
>Ok. Suggestions? pro's con's?
>
> Roger.
I suggest splitting one huge tar file into 256,000 byte pieces ala
what ftp.uu.net does for large GNU programs like gcc itself!!!
I have suggested this in the past when I had a hard time downloading.
I now have direct Unix (tm) downloading capability but appreciate the
difficulties for non-Unix downloaders of files of 1.2 megabytes.
John (former multics user)