On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Thomas Koenig wrote: > This turns out not to be the case. Rather, apt checks the > sizes binary Packages files, downloads the Packages files, and > then checks the sizes of the binary Packages files. During > download of the binary Packages files, the size of the source > Packages is estimated to be zero.
For FTP SIZE commands are issued immediately before a GET and that size is then reflected in the progress meter. Until a file has been sized it's length is considered to be 0. For HTTP it is simply impossible, the size comes back with the GET request, and HEAD requests are never used. Files are never sized until they are actually about to be downloaded, which is why the meter is always a little funny. This is never going to change. The new release files do contain enough information to update the size estimates fairly early on, but nobody has implemented that. Jason
