Package: ftp.debian.org
Severity: normal
The Packages file is growing, and we would like to keep it smaller.
The MD5sum lines are vestigial at this point. Anything that they do
can be done better with the data from the SHA256sum lines.
Removal of the MD5sum lines would reduce the size of the gzip'ed
Packages file by ~13%, a significant win for a frequently-downloaded
file:
$ grep -v ^MD5sum <
/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages |
gzip -9 | wc -c
9541056
0 dkg@alice:~$ cat <
/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages |
gzip -9 | wc -c
10913735
0 dkg@alice:~$ echo $(( 100 - 100 * 9541056 / 10913735 ))
13
0 dkg@alice:~$
This removal was attempted once before, as documented in #818463, and
all of the subsequent blocking bugs appear to have been fixed in the
archive for several years.
#887831 suggests that jigdo may currently still be broken if MD5sum
goes away, but perhaps that's more of a reflection on the unmaintained
state of jigdo than it is on the state of the archive.
--dkg
