[rescue] q concerning freeware.sgi.com

[Rob Fielding]

Kurt Huhn wrote:

>"Patrick Giagnocavo +1.717.201.3366" <patrick at zill.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>For actually downloading the files you could probably use wget, but
>>need to know the filename of each file.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Or just use wget ofer ftp.  Works like a charm.
>wget --passive-ftp ftp://freeware.sgi.com/Dist/*
>
>  
>
indeed there's no real way around only having part of freeware. Even if 
you don't use it all you save yourself alot of time IMO just grabbing 
the lot and maintaining your own mirror of the archive. I use ncftp 
straight into

ftp://freeware.sgi.com/Dist/

get -R * 

will grab everything and only the packages that have changed (ie subsequent runs doesn't necessarily download everything again).

I wrote a little script :

http://reality.dsvr.net/irix/depot/fw_prune.pl

to manage my archive in a sort of semi automatic way - running it after you've downloaded all of freeware for nth time, it will scan down your archive telling you about packages it reckons are now obsolete (from the version number) and prompting you to either delete them, or the one it's currently on or do nothing. Then you're free to unpack it all, and point inst to it for fairly speedy freeware updates....well, it works for me :)

Best regards,

Rob