Re: size of git repository (was Re: [BUG] New Kernel Bugs)

Ingo Molnar
2007-11-18T14:57:04Z

* Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz> wrote:

> On Tue 2007-11-13 12:50:08, Mark Lord wrote:
> > Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > >
> > >for example git-bisect was godsent. I remember that
> > >years ago bisection of a bug was a very laborous task
> > >so that it was only used as a final, last-ditch
> > >approach for really nasty bugs. Today we can
> > >autonomouly bisect build bugs via a simple shell
> > >command around "git-bisect run", without any human
> > >interaction! This freed up testing resources
> > ..
> >
> > It's only a godsend for the few people who happen to be
> > kernel developers
> > and who happen to already use git.
> >
> > It's a 540MByte download over a slow link for everyone
> > else.
>
> Hmmm, clean-cg is 7.7G on my machine, and yes I tried
> git-prune-packed. What am I doing wrong?

"git-repack -a -d" gives me ~220 MB:

$ du -s .git
222064 .git

anyone who can download a 43 MB tar.bz2 tarball for a kernel release
should be able to afford a _one time_ download size of 250 MB (the size
of the current kernel.org git repository). If not, burning a CD or DVD
and carrying it home ought to do the trick. Git is very
bandwidth-efficient after that point - lots of people behind narrow
pipes are using it - it's just the initial clone that takes time. And
given all the history and metadata that the git repository carries (full
changelogs, annotations, etc.) it's a no-brainer that kernel developers
should be using it.

(and you can shrink the 250 MB further down by using shallow clones,
etc.)

yes, some people complained when distros stopped doing floppy installs.
Some people complained when distros stopped doing CD installs. Yes, i've
myself done a 250+ MB download over a 56 kbit modem in the past, and
while it indeed took overnight to finish, it's very much doable. It's
not really qualitatively different from the 1.5 hours a kernel tar.bz2
took to download.

Ingo