pacman slowness

Jacek Poplawski · 2006-10-30 16:38:17

(this is not a troll)

Why pacman is so slow? I don't mean downloading speed. I mean database access speed. When I want to list contents of package or I want to upgrade package or I want to remove package - processing always take a long while.

Is there any work to improve this situation? Can I read somewhere about it?

Snowman · 2006-10-30 16:58:47

It's because pacman's db is made of hundreds if not thousands of small files. So it takse time to read them from the disk. You could try running pacman-optimize which is a script to remove fragmentation between these files. You could also use a FS which is better at handling small files.

Do a forum search for pacman and database. There has been discussions about that. I don't think pacman 3 will use a database but it might have some speed improvement.

cactus · 2006-10-30 17:57:01

Jacek. Many users have reported slow read times with pacman, on the reiserfs file system. There are many work arounds listed in the forums...

phrakture · 2006-10-30 19:50:05

Snowman wrote:

There has been discussions about that. I don't think pacman 3 will use a database but it might have some speed improvement.

s/might/will/
Cactus did some performance comparisons, but pacman3 at least *feels* faster with the same file-based backend.

Snowman · 2006-10-30 21:18:25

phrakture wrote:

Snowman wrote:
There has been discussions about that. I don't think pacman 3 will use a database but it might have some speed improvement.
s/might/will/
Cactus did some performance comparisons, but pacman3 at least *feels* faster with the same file-based backend.

That's good news!

slackhack · 2006-10-31 00:11:54

i noticed pacman has been a lot slower accessing the database here lately, since about a couple weeks ago, it seems. optimize-pacman seemed to help, and using wget as xfer agent.

i converted most of my fs to ext3, but so far root is still on reiser. the reason i originally used reiser is b/c it claimed to be better with smaller files.

can't wait for Pac3, when's it supposed to be ready?

phrakture · 2006-10-31 00:13:39

slackhack wrote:

can't wait for Pac3, when's it supposed to be ready?

It was supposed to be ready a while ago. I actually promised some people an RC release, but it didn't happen. Therefore, I don't want to promise anything like that - I will just go with the old standby - "soon".

slackhack · 2006-10-31 00:42:36

phrakture wrote:

slackhack wrote:
can't wait for Pac3, when's it supposed to be ready?
It was supposed to be ready a while ago. I actually promised some people an RC release, but it didn't happen. Therefore, I don't want to promise anything like that - I will just go with the old standby - "soon".

no hurries, no worries.

Snarkout · 2006-10-31 03:44:21

"Soon" is always better than "not soon." Unless you're talking about getting out of bed or going to work.

cactus · 2006-10-31 03:52:28

Snarkout wrote:

"Soon" is always better than "not soon." Unless you're talking about getting out of bed or going to work.

soon...soon...
:cry:

Arch Linux

#1 2006-10-30 16:38:17

pacman slowness

#2 2006-10-30 16:58:47

Re: pacman slowness

#3 2006-10-30 17:57:01

Re: pacman slowness

#4 2006-10-30 19:50:05

Re: pacman slowness

#5 2006-10-30 21:18:25

Re: pacman slowness

#6 2006-10-31 00:11:54

Re: pacman slowness

#7 2006-10-31 00:13:39

Re: pacman slowness

#8 2006-10-31 00:42:36

Re: pacman slowness

#9 2006-10-31 03:44:21

Re: pacman slowness

#10 2006-10-31 03:52:28

Re: pacman slowness

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