Re: Upgrade report from "bo" to "hamm" :-(
ezanardi@ull.es (Enrique Zanardi) writes:
> There are a few problems with our current package-installation process:
>
> 1) dpkg takes a lot of time to start.
> 2) dpkg takes a lot of time recursing down the directory tree to install
> a few packages only.
> 3) there's no way to do unattended installations.
>
Actually the true killer was the upgrade of the teTeX packages. It is
pretty hard to stand seeing three time in a row "Running initex [...]
This will take some time" on a 486DX-2/66 at the configuration stage.
This alone consumed almost half an hour IIRC.
Would "apt" have made a difference with this? Like installing and
configuring all teTeX packages in a row and running "initex"
afterwards just once? Or is this simply impossible?
> but luckily, there are a few answers too:
>
> 1) dpkg uses plain text databases. It takes a lot of time to parse them
> to build its internal tables. IIRC, "dpkg-next-generation" (the one that
> is being actively developed, and probably will be in slink RSN) doesn't
> use the text databases directly, it uses hash tables to speed the
> process.
>
I can hardly await this true improvement! It's about time, although
i'm aware that someone finally has had to volunteer to invest his/her
valuable spare time in such a project. I appraise every such effort
because it significantly increases Debian's quality in the long run.
[...]
> 3) Now that is a big problem. And one that has been discussed frequently.
> I can't remember what was the final decision (if any) that came out of
> the last thread, but you may find it at debian-dpkg or debian-admintool
> maillists archives.
>
Well, i remember some discussions here on debian-devel which i never
really followed out of time constraints. The point is that i believe
that every single maintainer should right now try to avoid running
those dreaded postinst scripts after installation, dictate a sensible
default and just send a mail to root to tell him/her to postconfigure
stuff by running /sbin/packagename-config.sh for later customization
if the given default is unacceptable. I believe that most postinst
scripts could be turned into post-configuration scripts and
furthermore it could even be acceptable that a sysadmin can be exected
to configure things manually afterwards.
It would be a shame if i'd have to use another distribution than
Debian at my future workplace simply because it would save me valuable
time with installation, upgrading and maintenance.
I really do like Debian and having intensively tried out Redhat i know
why i like and prefer Debian over it. But unfortunately it has it's
severe shortcomings nonetheless.
Thanks for reading, P. *8^)
--
--------- Paul Seelig <pseelig@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de> -----------
African Music Archive - Institute for Ethnology and Africa Studies
Johannes Gutenberg-University - Forum 6 - 55099 Mainz/Germany
--------------- http://www.uni-mainz.de/~pseelig -----------------
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