On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:13:27 +0200
Nico Kruber
I'm not sure if copies of all installed rpms are stored on disk, but at least after the last step, the old rpm can be deleted
Default is not to keep rpm files, but as I can find some in older installation with a lot of updates, it seems that it keeps last version for delta rpm process. General default can be changed, but it is: * not obvious how to do that, * not advertised as an option to save bandwidth. Majority of users will leave default. Even those that can profit from smaller downloads, like people with ISPs that sell metered connection with download caps. (One good thing out of this discussion is that I'll update http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installation group of articles with this) ...
You must have a very slow computer and a very fast broadband connection not to benefit from delta rpms for packages over a certain size.
As you state, it is all relative to what you have, so besides sure gain eg. saving SUSE some money that can be used elsewhere, there is no good approach for everybody.
... I assumed that "burdened with 500 megs of updates every 2-4 weeks" means traffic - anyway,
It means discomfort: * Lower bandwidth left for other activities, * Servicing package management application requests: licenses, solving package selection problems, broken network connection problems, etc. so it is good to avoid it in order to get more users aboard.
used space on the HDD should be rather constant after having the package installed once
Right, although from my perspective HDD is not worth to think about. Some people are sensitive on size of installation, but that is either memory leftover from old times when HDD was a limitation, or special needs installation on a small media. Neither is relevant to mainstream use cases that Martin mentioned.
Nico
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