Re: Why is installing software....so....darn....slow?

On Sep 29, 12:56 pm, Unruh <unruh-s...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
=?iso-8859-1?b?UOl0dXI=?= Ingi Egilsson <pe...@xxxxx> writes:

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:04:06 -0700, Randy Brick MacKenna wrote:
I'm new to Linux and to openSUSE. One thing I noticed is that anytime I
download a RPM, it takes next to forever to install.

First, it spends about 5-10 minutes "resolving dependencies". Then it
spends another 5 minutes "preparing software". Then it installs the
software, sitting at 0% completion for another 5-10 minutes -- and
finally jumping to 99% completion, where it will usually sit for another
few minutes until it finally completes.

If your 5 to 10 min is correct ( rather than the 5-10 sec I suspect you
really mean-- get out your watch next time and actually time it)
Then you have problems. Far too small memory. Far too slow a computer.
A hard disk which is on its last legs and needs to reread itself 10 times
each time it reads something.

I mean, compared to a WinXP system, where downloading a .exe self-
installer and waiting about 10 seconds for it to complete, this is
excruciating.

I'm not installing complex stuff, either. Simple utilities, for
example. It seems that everything takes at least 15-20 minutes to
complete.

Is this normal?

No



-Randy
Hi Randy.
Certainly this is not normal if your system is > than the recommenced
hardware requirements.
How much RAM do you have?
What kind of processor?

Okay...I had some time to experiment more with this today, after
getting all my chores around the house done...

I believe the culprit was that ZMD (Zen) thing..whatever it is. As
someone here suggested, I turned it off. Now, when click on an RPM at
a website, it no longer automatically installs -- I have to go to the
folder it was downloaded to and then tell YaST to install it.

YaST installs the RPM in about 20 seconds, compared to 20 minutes (yes
MINUTES!!) with the software installation tool/ZMD tool.

No way this slowness could have been due to the system. I'm running
on a brand new build, with an AMD Athlon 3800+ with 1G of DDR2-667
memory and two brand new W.D. 7200 RPM 3.0GB SATA drives, in striped
(RAID-0) mode. This system is not a screaming gamer dream box -- but
for a fileserver/webserver it is pretty good. Everything else on the
box runs acceptably fast.

What I'd like to do now, if someone can tell me how, is to dis-
associate the RPM filetype from that nasty software installation
tool, and instead associate it with the YaST installer. Removing that
software installation tool might not be a bad idea, either. I'm
running KDE, if that matters.

Thanks!
-Randy

.

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