[tex-live] Using Jigdo as a downloader

[Sebastian Rahtz]

Steve Schnepp wrote:

>I searched through the ML archives if anyone thought about jigdo 
>[ http://atterer.net/jigdo/ ] to download the various .iso files. I
>didn't find any mails about it. 
>
>So I asked myself : why not ?
>
>  
>
the short answer, for my part, is because this is the first time I heard 
of it :-}

>Since TeX-Live is mostly assembling files which are also available from
>the various CTAN servers, it make IMHO a very good candidate of this way
>to download ISOs. 
>  
>
TL is a _lot_ more complicated than downloading files from CTAN. A 
typical LaTeX macro package,
for instance, is stored on CTAN as one .dtx file and one .sty file. 
These have to be processed,
and the resulting files placed in the right places in a hierarchy. 
Documentation files are run to PDF,
font metrics are created etc. And that's just for a simple package... 

So using jigdo to talk to CTAN would not work. However, it might work as 
a distribution mechanism
from the copy of the TeX Live master tree on tug.org.

To be honest, I don't really understand what jigdo is doing after a 
quick read of the web page, and the dark green background makes it too 
hard work for now :-} But if you'd like to demonstrate how it might 
work, and have space
on your server to make an experiment (the master is currently 1.19 
Gbytes), I could show you how to grab a copy
of TL and keep in sync with it.

Sebastian Rahtz