The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to gmane.linux.debian.user as well.
Summary: "freshen my sid CDs" probably worse than "get fresh CDs" or "dist-upgrade via apt-zip". Recently I posted on http://lists.debian.org/deity/2003/deity-200301/author.html about ideas for modem users on how to freshen their sid CD set: 1. not like apt-zip, which is gets fresh versions of what you already have installed. Therefore one never gets new kernel releases, etc. 2. not like jigdo, which is for making a whole new set of cds, therefore one ends up making lots of CDs even if only a few programs changed, I recall. Instead my fantabulous idea was: have my friend burn a CD with all the .debs in sid minus the ones I already have on my 20021010 CDs. Well, since my sid cds are three months old, it turns out that more than 1/2 of the .debs are older than current. Hmmm, therefore say I wait a few more months, probably most of the programs will have new versions. So maybe I should just 'a new sid cd set once a year, and in the meantime, apt-zip and just plain apt-get install for small stuff that one wants freshened badly. wwwoffle and APT::Get::List-Cleanup false; are helpful for offline users. Anyway here's how I computed it: $ make -s bytes_needed Unchaged on CDs 2612964310, changed 3496978462 or if just apt-zip, dist-upgrade: 500961328 I.e. 3GB vs. 500MB here's the Makefile to compute it: PV=awk '/^Package:/ {p=$$2};\ /^Filename:/{f=$$2};\ /^Version:/ {v=$$2};\ /^Size:/ {s=$$2};\ /^$$/ {sub(":","%3a",v);print f,p"_"v,s}' LD=/var/lib/apt/lists H=debian.linux.org.tw remote_list: $(PV) $(LD)/$H_debian_dists_sid*-i386_Packages|sort>$@ cd_list: $(PV) $(LD)/Debian%20GNU_Linux%20SID*i386_Packages|sort>$@ bytes_needed: remote_list cd_list /tmp/fetch-script-wget-debian comm -2 remote_list cd_list|awk '/^\t/{h+=$$3;next};{s+=$$3};\ END{printf "Unchaged on CDs %d, changed %d\n",h,s}' awk '{s+=$$3};END{printf "or if just apt-zip, dist-upgrade: %d\n",s}' \ /tmp/fetch-script-wget-debian /tmp/fetch-script-wget-debian: /usr/sbin/apt-zip-list -s -m /tmp -a dist-upgrade -- http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780
