Bug#274241: aptitude: download progress bar cannot handle variable throughput

[Nikolaus Schulz <microschulz@web.de>]

Hi,

I investigated this a bit. 

First, the progress meter is fine when packages are downloaded for
installation. Only on updating the package list it fails to display
sensible values, jumps from 0 to 99% and so on.
Second, I measured the net load while updating the package list, and it
does _not_ seem to be caused by "bursty" traffic. This is consistent,
since the amount of downloaded data -- displayed for the current item on
a line itself -- is steadily increasing. 

I do not know what's going on here. :-/ 

Daniel Burrows wrote:
> On Thursday 30 September 2004 06:08 pm, Nikolaus Schulz wrote:
> > > and so naturally if nothing is being
> > > downloaded for long periods of time it'll say "stalled".  I consider this
> > > a feature.
> >
> > If it's a feature, it should catch the traffic peaks, but it doesn't.
> > Probably it just doesn't poll the traffic load often enough.
> 
>   You have it backwards: you're asking for apt to recalculate this information 
> *less* often (or to keep a more detailed history).  What's happening is that 
> apt notices that no data was received in the last 6 seconds, and then reports 
> that.  The formula is (amount of data received in 6 seconds)/(time since last 
> update).

Oh, it _is_ doing this already? Then I was even more on the wrong track.
That's very weird. There are no 6 seconds with no data being received,
see the notes above. 
If the algorithm is working that way, how can it be that wrong?

[ snipped considerations how handling bursty transmissions could be
improved ]


Regards,

Nikolaus