Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 13:50:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> To: current@freebsd.org Subject: Wow, CVSup is cool! Message-ID: <Pine.AUX.3.94.961004133308.12298B-100000@covina.lightside.com>
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After complaining about some problems I had with sup4.freebsd.org (it repeatedly fetched large chunks of contrib even though nothing, other than the datestamp, had changed!), I decided to try out CVSup, even though it involves installing the 5MB Modula-3 package first. I was _very_ impressed! My favorite features: 1) Doesn't get confused by datestamps. It uses checksums and the embedded RCS version to tell if the file has changed. This was especially a problem with Sup when I tried to switch to an alternate sup server, because many datestamps were different (different time zones?). Not a problem with CVSup. 2) When a file changes, it applies the CVS deltas directly rather than redownloading the entire file. This saves a tremendous amount of time, and combined with built-in compression support, makes CVSup a godsend for people on slow links (like my 28.8kbps modem!). 3) Compatible with my existing sup configuration. It includes an awk script to convert existing supfiles to CVSup format. I thought I would need to download the CVS Repository to take advantage of CVSup, but the mode I used only downloaded /usr/src, exactly like sup. If I decide to devote disk space for the CVS repository later on, CVSup will support that too, and with the same benefits in speed. Anyway, kudos to John Polstra for an excellent piece of software (it even has a nifty X11 GUI!). The savings in time will make up for the initial 5MB Modula-3 download in your first or second usage. EVERYONE who is currently using SUP to get FreeBSD-current should give CVSup a try, it is that good! (Another happy FreeBSD customer who is right now reading the Modula-3 web page, since I've got the compiler installed :-) -- Jake
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