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Bug#685756: apt-xapian-index makes 256 MB RAM laptop very unresponsive



Package: installation-reports

Boot method: CD
Image version: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/wheezy_di_beta1/i386/iso-cd/debian-wheezy-DI-b1-i386-netinst.iso
Date: Aug 22, 15:37

Machine: HP Omnibook 6000
Partitions:
Filesystem                                             Type     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                                                 rootfs   154082676 5548756 140819104   4% /
udev                                                   devtmpfs     10240       0     10240   0% /dev
tmpfs                                                  tmpfs        25452     264     25188   2% /run
/dev/disk/by-uuid/1244a110-6ee7-4f63-a8bf-330c425ff71c ext4     154082676 5548756 140819104   4% /
tmpfs                                                  tmpfs         5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                                                  tmpfs        50904      24     50880   1% /tmp
tmpfs                                                  tmpfs        50904      68     50836   1% /run/shm


Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it

Initial boot:           [O]
Detect network card:    [O]
Configure network:      [O]
Detect CD:              [O]
Load installer modules: [0]
Clock/timezone setup:   [0]
User/password setup:    [0]
Detect hard drives:     [0]
Partition hard drives:  [0]
Install base system:    [O]
Install tasks:          [0]
Install boot loader:    [0]
Overall install:        [E]

Comments/Problems:

The overall LXDE install was successful including encryption of the swap partition.
However, after the first boot and after a few moments, package apt-xapian-index
rebuild it's index. At that very moment the HP laptop simply becomes very unresponsive.
256 MB RAM is not enough for apt-xapian-index as seen from below 'free'
outputs, with and after removal (in recovery mode!) of apt-xapian-index. This is
somewhat disappointing considered that LXDE should be the lean desktop and
that other application like an IDE and iceweasel runs ok.

Output of free and with apt-xapian-index running:
-------------------------------------------------
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        254508     250776       3732          0         92       4324
-/+ buffers/cache:     246360       8148
Swap:      1991676     129112    1862564

After removal of package apt-xapian-index:
------------------------------------------
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        254508     225000      29508          0      20424     129328
-/+ buffers/cache:      75248     179260
Swap:      1991676          0    1991676

A few possible solutions in respect to the installer and the package itself.

(i) Debian installer:
In the installer task (Debian Desktop), one can consider to exclude the
package as default.
(ii) apt-xapian-index install: In the 'Setting up apt-xapian-index', do not
automatically start the background task ..rebuilding index..
since the processor will shuffling data between physical memory and swap and
not finish the task.
(iii) apt-xapian-index: The program could check for sufficient memory and not
start the rebuild task if memory low or should not run at all.

Unfortunately the scarcity of really compatible laptop RAM is hard to find.
I have included hardware-summary and the 'cat /proc/meminfo' for above cases.

Cheers
Bertil

Attachment: omnibook6000.apt_xapian_index.tar.gz
Description: GNU Zip compressed data


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