package apt retitle 501747 apt: ‘update’ takes excessive time to download Packages diffs thanks
On 10-Oct-2008, Ben Finney wrote: > Invoking ‘aptitude update’ downloads a number of different files, > but then cycles over and over downloading the same ‘Packages’ file: I found a partial workaround for this: I manually downloaded the current ‘Packages.gz’ file from http://ftp.au.debian.org/pub/debian/dists/lenny/main/binary-i386/ and uncompressed it to the filename apt was expecting, ‘proxy:3142_mirror.internode.on.net_pub_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages’ in the ‘/var/lib/apt/lists/’ directory. The result was that the file download took a few minutes, and the next ‘update’ produced the following output: ===== $ sudo aptitude update Hit http://proxy lenny/updates Release.gpg Ign http://proxy lenny/updates/main Translation-en_AU Get:1 http://proxy lenny Release.gpg [189B] Ign http://proxy lenny/main Translation-en_AU Hit http://proxy lenny/updates Release Get:2 http://proxy lenny Release [74.5kB] Get:3 http://volatile.debian.net lenny/volatile Release.gpg [189B] Ign http://volatile.debian.net lenny/volatile/main Translation-en_AU Get:4 http://volatile.debian.net lenny/volatile Release [40.7kB] Ign http://volatile.debian.net lenny/volatile/main Packages/DiffIndex Get:5 http://volatile.debian.net lenny/volatile/main Packages [787B] Ign http://proxy lenny/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex Get:6 http://proxy lenny/main Packages/DiffIndex [2038B] Hit http://proxy lenny/updates/main Packages Hit http://proxy lenny/main Packages Fetched 118kB in 1min2s (1907B/s) Reading package lists... Done ===== I think that the original description may not have been correct in saying that apt was downloading “the same Packages file” over dozens of hours; instead, it was likely downloading many diff files over that time. This workaround is *not* a resolution to the bug, because: * The downloads performed by ‘aptitude update’ took excessively long, for data that I manually downloaded in a few minutes. Something is causing the automatic process to take orders of magnitude longer than a manual download of effectively the same data. * The resulting, complex, filename for the unpacked ‘Packages.gz’ file had to be manually determined by the user, whereas it would normally be automatically managed by the ‘apt update’ process. This is not a suitable procedure for a user to perform. The correct resolution is to fix the download of diffs that are taking orders of magnitude longer than a manual download of the all-in-one file, so that ‘update’ is useable again. Unfrotunately for this purpose, I have now worked around the problem on this system, so cannot offer much more diagnostic help. -- \ “One of the most important things you learn from the internet | `\ is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It's just an awful lot of | _o__) ‘us’.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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