[Dev] package popularity tracking (Was: repo redirector modificatoins)

[bill-auger]

On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 21:39:24 +0200 Andreas wrote:
> I propose choosing one or two reliable and well-used mirror

which are the most used mirrors is currently another unknown -
you have one such mirror; so you could be one of the monitors;
but how to determine if yours is among the most used


On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 21:39:24 +0200 Andreas wrote:
> Putting the redirector at the end of the mirrorlist would make
> a lot of sense. It would allow users to enable (uncomment) a
> default mirror they prefer, and pacman would only fall back on
> the redirector if needed.

that is already the recommendation - i added that to the
mirrorlist some time ago:

> # Note: This is not itself a mirror, but a load-balancing redirector. 
> #       It automatically redirects to an approriate Arch or Parabola mirror.
> #       It works best by specifying it a few times, to recover from 404s.
> #       This is the most reliable and recommended option.
> #       Moving a nearby mirror from the list below to above these can often
> #       afford a speed boost; but keeping these enabled always is most reliable.
> Server = https://redirector.parabola.nu/$repo/os/$arch
> Server = https://redirector.parabola.nu/$repo/os/$arch
> Server = https://redirector.parabola.nu/$repo/os/$arch
> Server = https://redirector.parabola.nu/$repo/os/$arch
> Server = https://redirector.parabola.nu/$repo/os/$arch

i was only suggesting that it could skew the results; because
the redirect or would only see requests from such a user
sporadically, only for the most fresh packages, and only for
brief periods while their preferred mirror is out-of sync - it
would put a slight weight on packages that have higher churn
rates, while they are less than a sync interval old - maybe
thats negligible