On 11/11/2010 08:19 PM, MÃirÃn Duffy wrote: > I really want to help make our installation process an easy and pleasant > experience Anaconda takes too much time (a factor of 2 to 4) and too much RAM (a factor of 6 or 7.) See this Request For Enhancement (RFE) from 2002: RFE: 2X to 6X faster install via software pipeline and controlled memory footprint https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=71184 In the intervening eight years the speed has improved slightly, while the space has become worse (today: minimum 512MB, usual 1GB.) The same analysis still applies: pipeline the package installs for speed, fork+no_exec+wait most logical operations in order to control address space. The pipeline is (per .rpm): 1. fetch the file, removing the outermost layer of compression as it comes in 2. do everything else except the %post 3. %post [and cleanup if necessary] Using such a pipeline, the 1193 packages for Internet Desktop (about 3.2GB on disk, 1.3GB on install media) could be installed in 5 minutes (32X CD or 4X DVD, 1GHz CPU, 384MB RAM, disk >= 20MB/s.) Only step 3 requires serialization of predecessors (dependent packages); otherwise arbitrary parallelism is allowed. Even step 3 can be parallelized over the set of all the packages that have no remaining predecessors at the same stage of topological sort. ----- Yesterday I timed installing Fedora 14 x86_64 using 2.0GHz uniprocessor CPU, 3.3GB RAM, 50MB/s harddrive, 20X DVD reader, 4X DVD+RW or 16X DVD+R media. I chose Custom harddrive configuration, and selected the same pre-partitioned 20GB slice. This is a workhorse desktop machine that is not young. Installing Fedora 14 x86_64 LiveCD, 685MB recorded on 4X DVD+RW: clock mm:ss step ----- ----------------------- 00:00 Autoboot in 8 seconds 01:15 completed (f) logo on splash/progress screen 01:55 Autologin 02:40 click Install to harddrive 03:05 format "/" (root) [20GB ext4] 04:30 copying live image to harddrive 06:15 post install 07:45 Congratulations! [done] ======================================= 2.145GB on disk in 3:15 [4:30 to 7:45] ==> 11 MB/s [barely adequate speed] Installing Fedora 14 x86_64 DVD, 3.4GB recorded on 16X DVD+R; Internet Desktop (default; 1193 packages): clock mm:ss step ----- ----------------------- 00:00 boot 00:22 no media check 01:03 Fedora 14 splash screen 02:18 format "/" (root) [20GB ext4] 02:45 check package dependencies 03:06 transfer install image to harddrive 03:18 starting installation process 05:30 first package 19:50 last package 20:47 post install 20:51 Congratulations! [done] 3.3GB on disk ======================================== 3.3GB on disk in 15:17 [5:30 to 20:47] ==> 3.6 MB/s [SLOW!] Note that my timings are much different than those at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/UX_Redesign/Current_Install_Process_Analysis which say 15 minutes for LiveCD, 1 hour for DVD. That DVD reader probably is old, broken, or too cheap [is it on a laptop?]. My reader cost $25 two years ago. -- _______________________________________________ Anaconda-devel-list mailing list Anaconda-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/anaconda-devel-list
