apt package database performance

[Lee Braiden <jel@tundra.ath.cx>]

Maybe my system just needs defragged, but installing or even removing single 
packages seems to involve lots of time and disk activity these days, compared 
to what it used to take.  Given the text-based nature of apt's package 
database etc., I wouldn't be surprised though, if it scales horribly.

Anyone know how it actually does scale?  Was it designed to cope with the 
number of packages in sid now, and are there any discussions going on about 
optimising it?

-- 
Lee.