Re: dpkg modification: non-interactivity
Torsten Landschoff <t.landschoff@gmx.net> writes:
> On Mon, Jan 04, 1999 at 05:33:57PM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
...
> > > One of the other major strengths that this setup will offer is the
> > > ability to run simultaneous jobs. IE you can be running 3 postinst scripts
> > > at once, dramatically increasing speed.
> >
> > I hadn't even thought of that possibility. You have to be very carefull to
> > group simultanious postinst/preinsts to make sure you don't mess up the
> > dependencies, but it is quite doable.
>
> I do not think that this would be positive for the standard case. Of course
> this would be a big win for long-running scripts as the compile cycle for
> emacs packages.
Its not realy improving speed to run multiple config scripts at
once. The result will be large amounts of seeking on the
harddrive. Hardly any script does great calculations without the same
amount of input/output (well emacs list compilation might be an exception).
But what should be done is that when a script falls into interactive
mode, e.g. has to ask a question, and thus waits for the user, it is
suspended and put into a queue of scripts waiting for user input. Then
the next config script that is "ready to run" is started.
Once the user comes around (after getting a coffee or watching TV :)
he will see the first question on the screen, he answeres it and the
script is put back into the "ready to run" queue. At the same time the
next script in the queue for scripts waiting for user input is allowed
to present his question to the user.
The Effect would be that as much as possible is done in the background
while waiting for the user to answere some question. Once the user
answeres some question, he will be confronted with as many as there
are waiting. Also the user could answere the questions as they pop up
and thus has something to do during installation. One thus would have
the choise of answereing questions while installing or only at the end
(of each installation pass).
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
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