Bug#678227: [apt] Indices updates download descriptions in all languages by default
Package: apt
Version: 0.9.6
Severity: normal
With the modularization of package descriptions in distinct index files,
there is now one file for each language which has some descriptions. By
default, APT fetches all of these. Since the protocol is not optimized
for this, indices update are now pretty slow, even when nothing changed.
The Acquire::Languages configuration item controls which languages are
downloaded. By default, "environment" and English are (explicitly)
downloaded. For example, in a French system, Acquire::Languages would
normally request (explicitly) French and English description files to be
downloaded. But as explained in apt.conf(5), files for more languages
may be downloaded:
Note: To prevent problems resulting from APT being executed in
different environments (e.g. by different users or by other programs)
all Translation files which are found in /var/lib/apt/lists/ will be
added to the end of the list (after an implicit "none").
This is hacky, but not a particularly bad hack in practice, since most
systems do not use more than 2 languages.
But since /var/lib/apt/lists/ initially contains the files for all
languages, files for all languages are downloaded/updated, by default.
This happens even if a single language is hardcoded as
Acquire::Language's value.
The workaround is to remove unwanted descriptions files from
/var/lib/apt/lists/:
# rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*_Translation-*
I imagine the fix is to only have files for the requested languages in
/var/lib/apt/lists/ after installation.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=641967 has information
about a similar bug where description files would slow indices updates.
Reply to: