Arch Linux

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Slow response in community with -Syu

Normal -Syu downloads begin with core,extra, and community in my system to establish sync.

Core and extra are usually around five seconds to sync, then it takes 20 seconds before community even starts to sync but then it takes about five seconds to display 100% sync.

This is followed by another 20 seconds to start the process of upgrades.

This has been happening for several months with all the upgrades of the kernel and pacman.

It is not the way it used to be, all syncs occurred quickly and the process continued apace.

What have I missed along the way?

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Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

M177ER

Member

Registered: 2008-06-15

Posts: 148

Re: Slow response in community with -Syu

I've noticed this too. I thought it was just a mirror issue but I changed it and the delay still happens.

flamelab

Member

From: Athens, Hellas (Greece)

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2,160

Re: Slow response in community with -Syu

Well, it is a mirror issue. I use the mir.archlinux.fr and ftp.ntua.gr, and I don't have this problem

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Slow response in community with -Syu

Flamelab;

Your post reports it as a mirror issue.

Perhaps you can explain why only community is affected by a given mirror when the core and extra reflect normal performance from the same mirror list.

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Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

ataraxia

Member

From: Pittsburgh

Registered: 2007-05-06

Posts: 1,553

Re: Slow response in community with -Syu

I see this on my first -Syu after booting up. What's going on (at least for me) is that the delay comes from waiting for pacman to unpack the new extra DB, and since the pacman DB isn't in the disk cache yet, it's slow. You don't see this delay between core and extra since core's DB is very small and quick to unpack. It's not a network speed problem at all.

To confirm that this is your problem, try doing a second run after the first (slow) one finishes, with -Syyu to make sure it actually unpacks it again. This second run should be fast. For best effect, wait for the disk to be otherwise idle.

To solve it, use something like pacman-cage, to put the pacman DB on its own filesystem. Building your system with a separate /var, probably on reiserfs, cuts down on this bad performance as well.

For myself, I just live with it. I don't reboot that often...

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Slow response in community with -Syu

ataraxia;

Certainly a logical explanation which fits the observations and the conclusion is acceptable.

The reason for the discrepant performance provides a good reason to accept the delay and press on............

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Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!