freebsd-update painfully slow - slower than source code build of world and kernel

[Daniel Bond]

Hi,

I'm not sure where to post this, I had trouble finding a suitable  
mailing-list. Please point me in the right direction, if this is the  
wrong place to post this message.

First off, I love the binary update tool for FreeBSD. It is an  
excellent tool, and saves a lot of time and trouble compared to the  
old method (or so I thought, until recently).
I also like seeing the freebsd-update method is in the release notes  
for 7.1-RELEASE, as a official way to upgrade a system.

Yesterday I was struck by happiness, as I noticed 7.1-RELEASE was out  
on ftp.freebsd.org - and decided to start off by upgrading one of my  
companies development servers.
Usually an update with FreeBSD-update is quite quick, but today and  
yesterday it has just been to slow to use, after two days of trying -  
I've still not completed a single upgrade. The
server in question is connected to gigabit internet.

I think it is embarrassing that the binary update tool, is actually  
slower to use than compiling the whole operating system and kernel -  
even on a slow machine! The reason for this,
is not the tool it self, the tool is excellent - but there are no  
mirrors.. We need some mirrors, or such a great tool is not really  
usable at all (except for the really patient).

This also goes for portsnap. Portsnap is also an excellent tool, but  
the experience from using it could be much better. The european  
portsnap mirror is actually slower, than the one in the US.
I've been in contact with Colin, twice, about hosting another portsnap  
mirror. Using a proxy server, does not cut it - not for my use, sorry.  
I tried it, it didn't help. The last time I didn't receive an
answer.

As I was saying to Colin, both myself and a friend who works for the  
Norwegian government, should be able to run a mirror for portsnap on  
good bandwidth. Many other people have offered
to host mirrors, why is having mirrors a bad thing?

I know the 6.4 and 7.1 releases have very many patches, due to  
conversion from CVS to SVN. I have previously upgraded servers in  
Norway and UK to 6.4-RELEASE with freebsd-update,
and speed has been acceptable, not great, but enough to keep me using  
and loving the tool. Still, I think more people will use freebsd- 
update, since it is more practical to use, especially for
non homogenous environments.

Hopefully this will improve in the future, I don't mean to come across  
as a whining grunge, but it is quite frustrating to me, as a loving  
freebsd user.

Congrats on a new release, I will be using it in a another day or so  
(or whenever freebsd-update is done - maybe I will eat my own words,  
and just do a regular build)!



Best regards,


Daniel Bond.