Debian Bug report logs - #4448
dselect: Performance gripe with disk method doing dpkg -iGROEB

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Barak Pearlmutter <bap@sloan.salk.edu>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: dselect performance gripe

Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 20:09:36 -0700

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.2.14elf

When one fires up dselect, puts all packages on hold, chooses one tiny
little package to install --- say, jgraph --- then hits the big
install button ... it takes FOREVER as a long long list of "skipping
deselected package mumble ..."'s scrolls by at an agonizingly slow
pace.  This should not take so long.  And also (unless some internal
dselect extra verbosity switch is enabled) it's pretty useless
verbiage.

It seems to me that installing one package using dselect should be
about as pleasant and fast as installing it directly using dpkg (which
I am making a point of not learning, to preserve my purity as naive
debian critic).

Message #10 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Harald Weidner <weidner@ifi.unizh.ch>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#4448: dselect performance gripe

Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:13:07 +0100 (MET)

> Package: dpkg
> Version: 1.2.14elf

> When one fires up dselect, puts all packages on hold, chooses one tiny
> little package to install --- say, jgraph --- then hits the big
> install button ... it takes FOREVER as a long long list of "skipping
> deselected package mumble ..."'s scrolls by at an agonizingly slow
> pace.  This should not take so long.  And also (unless some internal
> dselect extra verbosity switch is enabled) it's pretty useless
> verbiage.

This mail is a bit old, but still on list of outstanding bugs.

IMHO, the problem is the script /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/disk/install. 
It does a "dpkg -iGROEB" on the whole selected binary directory.
This can take _very_ long, especially with slow file systems like
nfs over SLIP oder ISDN, or a single speed CD ROM drive.

The ftp/install script is much more intelligent. It fetches only
the necessary packages to a local directory and does a "dpkg -iGROEB"
on the fetched files.

This leads to the conclusion that it is possible to determine
which packages are needed without having a look at all of them.
However, copying the files to a local directory is waste of disk
space when the files are accessible in the filesystem. So, my
proposition is to fix the disk/install script to calculate a
list of packages to process, and then do a "dpkg -iGOEB" on each
package (without the -R option) instead of scanning the whole
directory tree.

-- 
Harald Weidner           http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/staff/weidner.html

Message #15 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: kai@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen)

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#4448: dselect performance gripe

Date: 18 Nov 1996 23:54:00 +0200

weidner@ifi.unizh.ch (Harald Weidner)  wrote on 18.11.96 in <"josef.ifi..423:18.10.96.18.13.18"@ifi.unizh.ch>:

> IMHO, the problem is the script /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/disk/install.
> It does a "dpkg -iGROEB" on the whole selected binary directory.
> This can take _very_ long, especially with slow file systems like
> nfs over SLIP oder ISDN, or a single speed CD ROM drive.

Not only that, it does it separate for each of the binary directories. It  
can be fun finally understanding why some of your package selections have  
been ignored all the time ... NOT.

However, while this may well qualify as a bug, I do believe it's not the  
most important thing on earth.

> This leads to the conclusion that it is possible to determine
> which packages are needed without having a look at all of them.
> However, copying the files to a local directory is waste of disk
> space when the files are accessible in the filesystem. So, my
> proposition is to fix the disk/install script to calculate a
> list of packages to process, and then do a "dpkg -iGOEB" on each
> package (without the -R option) instead of scanning the whole
> directory tree.

Either (if it's possible, I'm not certain off my head) give all the  
packages as arguments to one call to dpkg, or (probably better) symlink  
them all into a working directory and dpkg -iGROEB that directory.


MfG Kai

Message #22 received at 4448-maintonly@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: remco@blaakmeer.student.utwente.nl (Remco Blaakmeer)

To: 4448-maintonly@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Old bugs need to be looked at

Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 12:22:52 +0100 (CET)

This is an automated message sent to all bugs older than one year.

This bug is very old. Please take a look at it and see if you can fix it.
If it has already been fixed, please close it.

If you have problems fixing it or if you don't have the time to fix it,
please ask the people on debian-devel@lists.debian.org for help, so that
at least the oldest bugs can be solved before Debian 2.0 is released.

Remco Blaakmeer

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