Hello,
Last week I installed an extra 64 MB in the machine I mentioned, it
meant a huge speedup (about 17x) when upgrading packages (and the system
is much more responsive when doing an upgrade), so it's definitely the
size of the memory that counts. So I don't have any problems anymore,
but for people still using machines with 64 MB (old ones, or most
handhelds) I guess upgrading (not to mention installing Debian from
scratch) will still be a major PITA with the current dpkg.
I think I already see two ways of speeding up the process_archive() function:
instead of using an istobe flag, why not add packages to an istobelist
instead of setting the flag? Afterwards you only have to check that
list, do whatever is necessary with the packages on it, and delete the
list, without going through the entire package list. I also can't see a
reason why the check for disappearing packages couldn't be moved out of
process_archive() and be done only once, after installing/upgrading all
the packages.
--
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
Guus Sliepen <guus@sliepen.eu.org>
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