Chinese users packages install slow/fail

[entropyriser]

Chinese users have poor connections to github.com,so it's hard for us to install or update any package.We have a similar local website called gitee.com,so I hope dear developers can create a mirror there.Through this the major barrier that users in China face can be removed and there will be more users,contriibuting to the development of the project!

Edit:I modified the setup script to accelerate source code download---> https://github.com/EntropyRiser/RetroPie-Setup-CN

[mitu]

Binary installations are not using Github. Source installations will use Github, since most of the emulator projects are there. But we can't choose what the upstream emulation project(s) use for their source repository, so mirroring them is not up to the RetroPie project.

Through this the major barrier that users in China face can be removed.

I think another barrier needs to be removed, the one that slows down the connection to Github.

[entropyriser]

@mitu Thank you for your reply! I'll try to deal with the problem if I have time.

[entropyriser]

@mitu I found out that the connection to files.retropie.org.uk is poor too when installing binary packages......We really need a local mirror

[mitu]

You should sort things out with your network provider/ISP then, there's no throttling done on the RetroPie download server.
Are you able to test from another ISP/Network provider ? How do you know this affects all users from China ?

[entropyriser]

@mitu I've tried on multiple network providers & devices,and even sometimes retropie.org.uk and this bbc are unable to acccess......It's common in China to be unable to connect to foreign server.This is not your fault at all.And I've seen many posts on some Chinese BBC saying"waiting for hours",through which I believe it's a common condition here.

[mitu]

OK, in this case there's nothing we can do.

It's unlikely we'll add a mirror to remove this slowdown, but it's not my call to make.

[BuZz]

@entropyriser have you tried using a VPN?

[entropyriser]

@BuZz Anyway it's illegal and costs money

[entropyriser]

@mitu I am trying to edit the retropie_setup script to change the repo address to gitee.com's existing mirror.It works so well ! I cant believe my eyes.

But the work load for me is too heavy to change every script and clone them since I'm a student.Do you have solutions?

[mitu]

@entropyriser said in Chinese users packages install slow/fail:

But the work load for me is too heavy to change every script and clone them since I'm a student.Do you have solutions?

No, I don't have a solution. We're not going to add any mirroring options in the main project, so unless you or someone else is willing to create a fork (on gitee.com or somewhere closer) with the modifications needed, then I don't see the current situation improving for you.

[pjft]

@entropyriser Well, if everything is in gitee.com, I imagine that you could work out some simple command to replace github with gitee from the RetroPie-Setup folder - something like:

grep -rl github *.sh | xargs sed -i 's/github/gitee/g'

This is untested, but - if this works - this will very much break any updates you might want to make to RetroPie-Setup afterwards, and might break other things, as it'll (supposedly) blindly replace all occurrences of github to gitee - assuming the syntax is ok.

...@mitu could he not change his hostname file to resolve github.com to gitee.com instead?

[entropyriser]

@pjft Thank you for your advice but only a few of the repos are now on gitee.com so I need to fork them one by one......I will try to manage it later.

[mitu]

@pjft said in Chinese users packages install slow/fail:

...@mitu could he not change his hostname file to resolve github.com to gitee.com instead?

I don't think that will work, especially since:

1. TLS needs a proper hostname/site to work.
2. The URL syntax is not 100% compatible - i.e. github.com/libretro/RetroArch is mirrored on gitee.com/mirror/RetroArch, so an 1:1 match for the (github) repository name is not possible.

[entropyriser]

@mitu If I work on the Chinese version of rpsetup,will it be added as a branch to the project?
Anyway I'll try later because it's impossible to install retropie on a PC now in China.

[mitu]

@entropyriser said in Chinese users packages install slow/fail:

@mitu If I work on the Chinese version of rpsetup,will it be added as a branch to the project?

As I said, it's not up to me.
If it were, the answer would be no - it's not a technical problem that can be solved reliably from the RetroPie side and the majority of the programs installed by it are not under our control. Maintaining and supporting a different mirror/branch is additional work just to work-around your ISP blocking/throttling the rest of the internet. And this is not specific to RetroPie itself, but to other resources that depend on the 'external' internet being accessible and working reliably without interruptions.

[BuZz]

Yeah sorry. This isn't going to happen. I agree with @mitu

[entropyriser]

@BuZz OK.I've tried to dynamically change the DNS server to visit github.com and successfully installed retropie on Ubuntu(amd64).Maybe I just need to post a solution on local forums to instruct others.