Ok, the consensus seems to be that a large database of
software would be more useful than the software itself
on CDs.
I can buy that argument. Freshmeat is OK at this, but
you can't do contextual searches (yet) and you can't
tell apt-get or rpm to fetch binaries through it.
What's needed, if I am understanding this correctly,
is a cross between "archie" (anyone remember that?),
freshmeat, google, squid and an apt server, with a
local cache of rare and frequently-requested software.
The archie part would enable the server to identify
who had what binaries for a given program.
A Freshmeat-type database would give you a list of the
most recent versions of a program, given the title of
the software, rather than the filename.
A Google-like search engine would give the user the
ability to context-search. There is a lot out there,
and you can't assume the user knows every single
program by name, but they know the context in which
they'll be using it.
A squid-type proxy allows you to handle cached
queries, forwarding those that can't be processed
locally.
The apt-server would be the wrapper around most of
this gunk, so that retrieved data can be returned in a
format that apt-get can handle.
All the components are easy enough to obtain, but
yeesh! I don't think anyone's really looked at
combining them in quite this way.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
_______________________________________________
PDXLUG mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://pdxlug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdxlug
