check fastest mirror

[Zbigniew Luszpinski]

> just a suggestion, but would a topological field in the mirror list be
> helpful?

Yes and no. Tele-links, their distance and thickness may be misleading when 
trying to think looking on globe map. I looked at some Internet maps and must 
rethink some things now because I'm little surprised.

> we can -for instance- say for each mirror whether it is in one of the
> following regions:
>
> NAW - North America West
> NAE - North America East
> SAM - South America
> EUW - Europe West
> EUE - Europe East

Oh no, not again :-). Iron curtain was broken in 1989 and now Europe looks a 
little different. Now there is EU/nonEU countries. I'm EU citizen :-). This 
reflects how Internet links are lying around. See Internet maps links I found 
below. Especially this one from year 2006. We have in Poland big, thick net 
pipe to Germany, little thin pipe to Czech Republic. There is almost none 
pipes to East from us. If I need some big files like KDE or X I always check 
Polish servers and then say "Guten Morgen" to German servers. :-)
If I need some files I usually start at Germany and move thru Europe up to 
Spain and then go to US. Such 'file hunting' path I found in one IT magazine 
article and it seems to work great.

http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_internet/images/06_Map_med.gif
2006 Net map.

> APW - Asia Pacific West
> APE - Asia Pacific East
> ARB - Arab region
> AFN - Africa North
> AFS - Africa South
> AUS - Australia
>
> any subdivision further is meaningless as the internet is not clustered
> more than this (I think).

Maps of Internet links
http://www.duke.edu/~nem3/internet%20map.jpg
http://www.xprt.net/~rolfsky/internetSite/images/internetMap.jpg
http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_internet/wallpaper/images/tgi_internet_map_blk_10x7.jpg
http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_internet/images/06_Map_med.gif
This one is from 2006 year.

> It would be trivial to add weights to servers within this region for the
> preprogrammed mirrors and have the user enter a single region preference
> (hell we could even use dvd-region numbers :)).

Bingo! Very good idea! I vote for!
However country selector would be a little better, but DVD regions are easier 
to maintain.
http://www.free-codecs.com/guides/pictures/dvd_region_map.gif

> Auke

zbiggy