Some thoughts about yum and repositories

[Edward]

William Hooper wrote:

> D. D. Brierton said:
> [snip]
> 
>>1. Yum repositories should have a mirrors.xml file. All the user
>>need do is sign up to the main repository itself, the mirrors.xml file is
>>downloaded, and yum tries to use the mirror that is closest or fastest
>>(I'm not sure *how* it should do
>>that, but lets think of this as an ideal scenario proposal).
> 
> 
> The version of yum in rawhide already has this.  IIRC it does it using the
> same format as up2date, point it to a text file of repos and it randomly
> picks one.
> 

Sorry, just to get back to this point and other on other posts.

For the majority of people it would be serious advantage to grab a 
mirror in their geographic location. I fully agree with your arguments 
against it, they make sense.

I have a few download sites "guessing" my geographic location. I haven't 
found a wrong one yet. But perhaps based on your arguments, make a 
geographic locator the default, and allow the Gurus to switch it off?

Please remember not everybody using Linux lives in the States. Believe 
me, grabbing a local mirror for me here (Australia) is the only thing 
that makes sense. The random feature of up2date is useless to me as it is.

We should consider it, with option to not use it in my opinion.

my 2c

Regards,
Ed.