Mailinglist Archive: zypp-devel (226 mails)

[Peter Poeml <poeml@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I'm picking this up from opensuse-packaging, where I'm not subscribed,
so I cannot follow up there, but it fits better on the zypp-devel list
anyway.

I wanted to give my feedback about a feature which was suggested.

In suse.lists.opensuse-packaging, Lukas wrote:
> > Are a few minutes installation time really that important? Sure it's
> > 50% according to your numbers but it's still minutes.
> > Has anyone actually tried to optimize the traditional installation
> > method? Like preloading rpms or reorder them on the medium to avoid
> > seeks on the cdrom?
> Reordering RPMs should be done according to dependencies but libzypp=20
> solver can 'randomize' them a bit ;)
>
> There are some more important features that would make the traditional=20
> installation method faster:
>
>    * Downloading and Installation in more threads
>      (installation of RPM doesn't block downloading)

In principle a fine idea, and I had something like that in mind for a
long time myself, however:

To *reliably* avoid brokenness of the system in case the download can't
complete (network outage, packages don't match the metadata or similar),
it is *obligatory* to me (admin viewpoint) to first completely download
all packages, before starting to install them.

Therefore I prefer the "yum" method: download all packages, then try (in
a test transaction) whether updating/installing them works, then apply.

For these reasons, I would be careful with parallel downloads.

Of course, if libzypp doesn't do that anyway, it could at least download
the next package while still installing another one. Would be a nice
improvement for our users.

>    * Installing more RPMs at once.
>      (a lot of small RPMs have to initialize RPM database, lock it,
>      unlock it..., and again...)

This is actually what yum does. 

Peter