CSE FTP Mirror

[Marcel Kunath]

Okay I wasn't going to reason my request for consideration but I think I might
as well because I know the guys in charge will make a fair decision and I can
live with fact if something else gets mirrored and not SuSE. Survived without
it so far.

First I like to say that I am welcoming the fact that the CSE department is
willing to spend resources on mirroring software.

Here is how I see it when it comes to making decisions what to mirror.
(heavily slanted due to my own needs.)

1. How many kernel mirrors do we need? I don't see how we have a lack of
kernel mirroring in the Midwest or Northeast or Canadian areas. Kernel mirrors
seem to be standard but how many does the number have to be to reduce the
efficiency of the mirror being in existance.

2. I never heard of CTAN and CPAN in my life before so I alone from that point
agree with making the decision simply because it introduced me to software
mirror I wasn't aware was available. Many people also never heard of SuSe
before hence I'd say it gives people an introduction to something they might
otherwise never find out about.

3. What software is not being mirrored in the Midwest, Northeast or Canadian
areas? I don't sit around all day checking the locations of mirrors for Gnome
or gnu utils but I would think it is more helpful to mirror something that is
not mirrored yet or mirror software which doesn't have enough mirrors.

4. I know for a fact that SuSE has only a very limited amount of mirrors in
North America. There is seven in the USA and one in Canada. Five are in the
south east of the USA(Tennessee, Carlina, Georgia-2, Virgina), one in Indiana
and one is in California.

I also know that SuSE's ftp.suse.com server has been slammed with requests as
Americans tend to download more than Europeans. One of the reasons I assume is
the lack of mirrors.

The problem is not only the lack of mirrors but also the quality. I don't ever
download SuSE packages from an US mirror because of their load and quality. I
tend to get faster speeds downloading from Chemnitz, Germany. I don't think
that is a desireable situation.

If you look at the location of the mirrors you only have one mirror in Indiana
which serves basically the entire Midwest, the Northeast, part of Canada. You
basically can draw a triangle(New England, Dallas, Montana) and only the
Indiana falls inside this area. The Indiana mirror only allows 30 connections
at a time.

I do know SuSE is not the most used distro in the USA but I think these points
warrant that it be considered to be mirrored.

mk

> > Hey guys,
> > I just finished setting up a ftp mirror on the CSE system.  We currently
> mirror CPAN, CTAN, and Kernel.org.  This is brand new for us.  I will
> probably tell those 3 sites we are an official mirror sometime next
> week.  I want peoples input/suggestions before unleashing to the rest of
> the world.
>
> I am planning on setting up one of the BSDs (maybe openBSD) and maybe
> gnome.org soon.  Anyone have any requests?  We have a fair amount of
> space still that was set aside for this.
>
> Check it out on indian.cse.msu.edu
>
>
> Later
>
> --
> Adam Pitcher
> _______________________________________________
> linux-user mailing list
> linux-user@egr.msu.edu
> http://www.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user
>


--
Marcel Kunath

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 Montie House Network            Greater Lansing Linux Users Group
  http://www.montiehouse.com      http://www.gllug.org

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