[Debian-l10n-devel] Description-less packages file

[Steve McIntyre]

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 10:39:02PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
>
>I just merged a patch from Ansgar to generate the Packages files without
>the English description embedded inside them. Instead they are now
>written into a new file, the "English Translation" file in
>"main/i18n/Translation-en.bz2". They thus appear alongside all other
>translated descriptions as "just another language". apt & co will (or
>should) just download those Translation files to show the description,
>as they do already for all other languages.
>This lets us save quite a bit of space on our mirrors by not repeating
>them as many times as we have architectures - and also enables
>non-English-speaking users (and eventually multi-arch enabled APT) to
>save on download size, as they no longer need to download a language
>that is of no use to them or is already there.
>
>As this is is a larger changeset we did not switch the official dists/
>tree directly. Instead we are providing files generated in this way over
>at  [1] for you to test with and report bugs you find in this
>implementation or in the handling of it in whatever tool breaks
>down. That location is updated right during dinstall so should always
>contain current information.

As far as I can tell, debian-cd should now cope with the change just
fine. Starting with tomorrow's builds, CDs should pick up the existing
translations by default and should then also use Translation-en.bz2
when it appears.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve at einval.com
Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back