[re-directing to tech-repository, which was created precisely to keep
debates like this one off the other lists...]
On Thu, 14 May 2020 14:47:02 +0200, Jens Rehsack wrote:
> I doubt that you'll find a modern solution running fine on any 4M computer.
> Network filesystems, cross compilers etc. where invented to support machines
> which can't provide all required resources for a job on their own.
Unfortunately, the VCS equivalent to your list would be a client
connecting to a beefy local DVCS instance, which to the best of my
knowledge has not been invented, yet.
Actually, it has already been invented. GitHub has links to download the checkout as a zip archive from any branch.
I've just tried how it works, and am getting 5MB/s on my 12.6MB/s connection through the WiFi in the office, so, it seems to be working good enough. I believe they archive it on the go, as a stream, because there's no file size upfront when you first download it; I've tried downloading it a second time right after completing the first one, and I did get the size then (Length: 548765520 (523M) [application/zip]), so, they are smart enough to cache it at least for some time.
Of course, the biggest issue is that there's no way to ignore any specific parts of the tree, so, you're stuck with downloading a 0.5GB archive of a 2.4GB checkout. I'm still of the opinion that it might be a good idea to split the `src` repository into several sub-repositories like syssrc, gnusrc and src, as per
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-repository/2020/02/21/msg000698.html. Or maybe at least provide such a setup as an option, especially to just get the kernel?
Cheers,
Constantine.