RE: please add a find-the-fastest-mirror-automatically feature to setup.exe

["Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]" <BBuchbinder at niaid dot nih dot gov>]

Jason Spiro wrote on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 11:38 AM:

> Cc'ing the hackers of the Ubuntu "software-properties" app.
> 
> 2008/5/23 Chris Sutcliffe <ir0nh34d@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Jason Spiro wrote:
>>> [Cygwin] Setup.exe is a great tool, but could you please add a
>>> find-the-fastest-mirror-automatically feature?
>> 
>> That would require making a connection attempt to every entry in
>> setup's list, which would be rather counter-productive I would think.
> 
> What if Setup randomly tested just five or ten servers?
> 
> BTW, there are many mirror-testing servers out there.  (Ubuntu Linux
> has a tool with a GUI interface called software-properties[1], with a
> find-the-fastest-mirror-automatically feature called Select Best
> Server.  You can see screenshots of the feature online.[2]  Fedora
> has yum-fastestmirror.  Debian has netselect-apt, which is based on a
> tool called netselect.  Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote a similar tool called
> debian-mirrors which IIRC is no longer a Debian-only tool.)      
> 
> And now, a question for the software-properties hackers I cc'ed:
> 
> Do you know?:  When is it worth the time it takes for users to test
> various mirrors?  Is it worth it if they are planning to do just 2
> minutes of downloading?  How about 20 minutes?  Is it useful for
> users who have only, say, 128Kbps connections like DSL or "lite"
> cable?    

I would think that if one has a slow connection,
that is the rate-limiting factor, not the server.

[snip]

> Jason Spiro

I'm not a programmer, so please excuse me for commenting on a topic
whose solution I am incapable of contributing to.

I do not see what the problem is.  Or, rather, it seems to me (remember
that I admit haven't forgot that I'm totally unqualified to make this
estimate) that the benefit:work ratio is high compared to some other
improvements to setup.  If one finds a mirror too slow, one can always
look on the list of mirrors <http://cygwin.com/mirrors.html>, pick a few
that seem geographically close*, and time them with ping.  Better yet,
just try a few and see which works best.

* Actually, one could also try one that is far away, if it
  is the middle of the night in that part of the world.

I say this as someone who started with cygwin the pre-setup days, when
to get the "user" package involved downloading a zip file that, if I
remember correctly, was at least 20 Meg.  And I downloaded it over
*dial-up*!  Get it started and the phone line was tied up for two
hours.  (Now, with DSL or faster connections, I suspect that the slow
downloads for some people are really caused by downloading movies at
the same time. :-) )  And yes, I have had to change mirrors from time
to time as my favorite mirror has gotten slow or gone off line;
annoying at the moment but, averaged over time, no big deal.

However, I do seem to remember that I've sometimes had problems
(probably over dial-up -- it has been a while) downloading lots of new
packages.  Then the solution has always been to do it a few packages at
a time, e.g., one category at a time.

Now the above is not to dismiss your concerns.  Obviously, this is an
issue for you.  However, having read various cygwin lists for years,
this is the first time I can remember that someone has asked for this
feature.  Most setup requests have to do with user interface.  Most
mirror complaints are about staleness or disappearances.

Well, that's my two bits (and not even worth that much).

Best wishes,

- Barry
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