Debian bug report logs - #482
dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow

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Date: Wed, 22 Feb 95 11:56 GMT
From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow

Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow"):
> [Ian Jackson wrote:]
> > You can work around [slowness] by installing and/or
> > configuring several packages in one go.
> 
> The trick, of course, is to avoid installation failures due to
> unsatisfied dependencies, which frustrate and confuse the installer.

If you use --unpack first, and do --configure --auto later, this
should be less of a problem.

> I haven't looked at it closely, but my impression is that this
> becomes an issue only in a few cases.  The most complicated case
> I recall is installing gcc.  Perhaps someone with a full package set
> to preuse can unroll the dependencies for the dselect-less installer
> in the form of installation notes about the required order of package
> installation in those cases where dependencies are a factor.

If you tell dpkg to configure all the packages at once it will sort
them into the right order itself.

You don't have to unpack them in the right order, as unpacking them
doesn't run their postinst scripts.

Ian.

Message sent:

From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
Subject: Bug#482: Info received (was Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow)
In-Reply-To: <m0rhFge-0002g8Z.ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu>
References: <m0rhFge-0002g8Z.ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu>

Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding
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accompany the original report.

If you wish to continue submit further information on your problem,
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Please do not to reply to the address at the top of this message,
unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system.

Ian Jackson
(maintainer, debian-bugs)

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Subject: Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow
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Date: Wed, 22 Feb 95 11:56 GMT
From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com

Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow"):
> [Ian Jackson wrote:]
> > You can work around [slowness] by installing and/or
> > configuring several packages in one go.
>
> The trick, of course, is to avoid installation failures due to
> unsatisfied dependencies, which frustrate and confuse the installer.

If you use --unpack first, and do --configure --auto later, this
should be less of a problem.

> I haven't looked at it closely, but my impression is that this
> becomes an issue only in a few cases.  The most complicated case
> I recall is installing gcc.  Perhaps someone with a full package set
> to preuse can unroll the dependencies for the dselect-less installer
> in the form of installation notes about the required order of package
> installation in those cases where dependencies are a factor.

If you tell dpkg to configure all the packages at once it will sort
them into the right order itself.

You don't have to unpack them in the right order, as unpacking them
doesn't run their postinst scripts.

Ian.

Message received at debian-bugs:

From mdd.comm.mot.com!mitchell Tue Feb 21 10:34:54 1995
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Date: Tue, 21 Feb 95 10:33:27 PST
From: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)
Message-Id: <9502211833.AA01654@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow

> Yes, I know, it is.  This is an unfortunate consequence of the
> language in use (Perl5), the database structure and the need to search
> all packages' information for conflicts and dependencies.
> 
> It will be much faster when I have rewritten it in C, but atm I'm
> giving dselect priority.  If you disagree with this [...]

In general, I think users will tolerate late delivery, slow
operation, and a minimal feature set in a program set which
operates correctly when delivered (though they'll want those
last two deficiencies corrected) better than they'll tolerate a
program delivered on time, which is very fast, and which
crashes a lot or otherwise operates incorrectly.

I think the missing package selection features which dselect will
provide are more important at this point than the dpkg slowness.

> You can work around things quite a lot by installing and/or
> configuring several packages in one go.

The trick, of course, is to avoid installation failures due to
unsatisfied dependencies, which frustrate and confuse the installer.

I haven't looked at it closely, but my impression is that this
becomes an issue only in a few cases.  The most complicated case
I recall is installing gcc.  Perhaps someone with a full package set
to preuse can unroll the dependencies for the dselect-less installer
in the form of installation notes about the required order of package
installation in those cases where dependencies are a factor.

Message sent:

From: iwj@cam-orl.co.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)
Subject: Bug#482: Info received (was Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow)
In-Reply-To: <9502211833.AA01654@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
References: <9502211833.AA01654@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>

Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding
this problem report.  It has been forwarded to the developers to
accompany the original report.

If you wish to continue submit further information on your problem,
please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring
that the Subject line starts with "Bug#482" or "Re: Bug#482" so that
we can identify it as relating to the same problem.

Please do not to reply to the address at the top of this message,
unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system.

Ian Jackson
(maintainer, debian-bugs)

Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com:

Subject: Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow
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Date: Tue, 21 Feb 95 10:33:27 PST
From: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)
Message-Id: <9502211833.AA01654@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com

> Yes, I know, it is.  This is an unfortunate consequence of the
> language in use (Perl5), the database structure and the need to search
> all packages' information for conflicts and dependencies.
>
> It will be much faster when I have rewritten it in C, but atm I'm
> giving dselect priority.  If you disagree with this [...]

In general, I think users will tolerate late delivery, slow
operation, and a minimal feature set in a program set which
operates correctly when delivered (though they'll want those
last two deficiencies corrected) better than they'll tolerate a
program delivered on time, which is very fast, and which
crashes a lot or otherwise operates incorrectly.

I think the missing package selection features which dselect will
provide are more important at this point than the dpkg slowness.

> You can work around things quite a lot by installing and/or
> configuring several packages in one go.

The trick, of course, is to avoid installation failures due to
unsatisfied dependencies, which frustrate and confuse the installer.

I haven't looked at it closely, but my impression is that this
becomes an issue only in a few cases.  The most complicated case
I recall is installing gcc.  Perhaps someone with a full package set
to preuse can unroll the dependencies for the dselect-less installer
in the form of installation notes about the required order of package
installation in those cases where dependencies are a factor.

Message received at debian-bugs:

From cus.cam.ac.uk!iwj10 Tue Feb 21 07:35:23 1995
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Date: Tue, 21 Feb 95 03:08 GMT
From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow

Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow"):
> PACKAGE: dpkg
> VERSION: 0.92.24
> 
> dpkg is getting very slow.  It seems much slower than prior versions.

Yes, I know, it is.  This is an unfortunate consequence of the
language in use (Perl5), the database structure and the need to search
all packages' information for conflicts and dependencies.

It will be much faster when I have rewritten it in C, but atm I'm
giving dselect priority.  If you disagree with this please cause it to
be discussed; I'd rather spend my time writing code than debating what
to do, though ...

You can work around things quite a lot by installing and/or
configuring several packages in one go.  The problem is that dpkg is
very slow at parsing and rewriting the installed packages file.

The C code to do this exists (I wrote it as part of the work for
dselect) and is practically instantaneous to do the same job; I just
have to rewrite the rest of dpkg (which is quite slow in general) too.

Ian.

Message sent:

From: iwj@cam-orl.co.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
Subject: Bug#482: Info received (was Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow)
In-Reply-To: <m0rgkxX-0002g8Z.ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu>
References: <m0rgkxX-0002g8Z.ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu>

Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding
this problem report.  It has been forwarded to the developers to
accompany the original report.

If you wish to continue submit further information on your problem,
please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring
that the Subject line starts with "Bug#482" or "Re: Bug#482" so that
we can identify it as relating to the same problem.

Please do not to reply to the address at the top of this message,
unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system.

Ian Jackson
(maintainer, debian-bugs)

Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com:

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From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com

Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow"):
> PACKAGE: dpkg
> VERSION: 0.92.24
>
> dpkg is getting very slow.  It seems much slower than prior versions.

Yes, I know, it is.  This is an unfortunate consequence of the
language in use (Perl5), the database structure and the need to search
all packages' information for conflicts and dependencies.

It will be much faster when I have rewritten it in C, but atm I'm
giving dselect priority.  If you disagree with this please cause it to
be discussed; I'd rather spend my time writing code than debating what
to do, though ...

You can work around things quite a lot by installing and/or
configuring several packages in one go.  The problem is that dpkg is
very slow at parsing and rewriting the installed packages file.

The C code to do this exists (I wrote it as part of the work for
dselect) and is practically instantaneous to do the same job; I just
have to rewrite the rest of dpkg (which is quite slow in general) too.

Ian.

Message received at debian-bugs:

From mdd.comm.mot.com!mitchell Sun Feb 19 09:02:28 1995
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 09:02:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>
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To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow
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PACKAGE:  dpkg
VERSION:  0.92.24

dpkg is getting very slow.  It seems much slower than prior versions.
"dpkg --install gcc.deb" took over two minutes (!!) to complete.
"dpkg --install uuencode.deb" (a small, uncomplicated package) took
50 seconds.  Other packages are comparable -- and this is with the
.deb files on hard disk.

"dpkg --install garble.deb" took over 15 seconds to report that it
couldn't install that nonexistant package.

This is on a 4.34 BogoMips system with 20MB RAM.  Admittedly a
slow processor.  Still.....

To date, I've downloaded 114 (!) 0.93R3 packages -- and that
doesn't include either base or X11.  At a minute per package,
that's around two hours of time during system install just waiting
for dpkg to crank.  Add base system install and config time to
that, and floppy-fumbling time, and time spent selecting packages,
and time spent wondering how to deal with and then dealing with the
several problems bound to come up because of typos or whatever,
and we're talking at least a major portion of a full day for
installation -- and a lot more than that if not installing packages
from hard disk.

mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)

Message sent:

From: iwj@cam-orl.co.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>
Subject: Bug#482: Acknowledgement (was: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.90.950219085847.19247B-100000@bb29c>
References: <Pine.SUN.3.90.950219085847.19247B-100000@bb29c>

Thank you for the problem report you have sent regarding Debian GNU/Linux.
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Please do not to reply to the address at the top of this message,
unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system.

Ian Jackson
(maintainer, debian-bugs)

Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com:

Subject: Bug#482: dpkg 0.93.24 (and later) very slow
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From: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>
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PACKAGE: dpkg
VERSION: 0.92.24

dpkg is getting very slow.  It seems much slower than prior versions.
"dpkg --install gcc.deb" took over two minutes (!!) to complete.
"dpkg --install uuencode.deb" (a small, uncomplicated package) took
50 seconds.  Other packages are comparable -- and this is with the
.deb files on hard disk.

"dpkg --install garble.deb" took over 15 seconds to report that it
couldn't install that nonexistant package.

This is on a 4.34 BogoMips system with 20MB RAM.  Admittedly a
slow processor.  Still.....

To date, I've downloaded 114 (!) 0.93R3 packages -- and that
doesn't include either base or X11.  At a minute per package,
that's around two hours of time during system install just waiting
for dpkg to crank.  Add base system install and config time to
that, and floppy-fumbling time, and time spent selecting packages,
and time spent wondering how to deal with and then dealing with the
several problems bound to come up because of typos or whatever,
and we're talking at least a major portion of a full day for
installation -- and a lot more than that if not installing packages
from hard disk.

mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)