[Sugar-devel] Problem using sugar-update-control to update large (100+ MB) activity bundles

[Peter Robinson]

>> I want to use rsync but I need a mechanism that the users (kids) can
>> initiate through a simple GUI, like the current Activity Update
>> mechanism.
>
> Rsync's unique capability to transmit only changed blocks within
> large files requires using the real rsync:// protocol.  It won't
> work over dumb protocols such as http:// .
>
> This means you'd have to change both the client-side
> (sugar-update-control, fairly simple) and the server side
> (in our case Mozilla Addons, fairly complex).
>
> We could easily export the "files" directory of Mozilla Addons with
> rsync://, and the activity updater could use it when available.
>
> Exporting all the activities.sugarlabs.org data in an easily
> mirrorable format would also be a useful service for deployments
> that want to create a local mirrors.
>
> In fact, all our public data should also be made available in
> raw formats for easy mirroring.

What about something similar to the deltarpm feature in F11 where
there's a delta created between the previous release and it is served
over standard http/ftp/whatever like the full package. In the initial
set of updates released for F11 this reduced the update from something
like 120 meg to around 18. I'm not sure what format the .xo packages
take so I'm not sure what the differences/similarities are.

Peter