synaptic gui unresponsible while rebuilding database (hoary)

[Janis Blechert]

the synaptic gui is completely frozen while the database is beeing rebuild (for
example after a reload or after the installation of packages), for this reason
synaptic can only be closed after waiting a 'long' (in the eye of the beholder)
time without killing it.
More elegant would be to rebuild the database after starting synaptic rather
than when the user wants to end it.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

With "complettly frozen" you mean "can't close it with the close button" I
assume? Because it should redraw itself.

I would be interessted what your "use-case" is. When do you want to close
synaptic when it reloads it's cache? It may be a better solution to just add a
"exit now" button at those point.

[Janis Blechert (janis-blechert)]

Well, I've got a few ideas:
1. don't reload the cache after installing/updating packages. do it the next
time synaptic starts up (which is done right now anyway, so it seems to me like
one of the reloads is needless) [just to get this clear, I mean the process
where it displays a little 'building dependecy tree', etc. on the status bar)
2. taking several seconds to change about 10 entries smells fishy to me, perhaps
the whole cache is reloaded instead of only what has changed, this could be
optimised.
3. don't reload the cache after installing/updating packages, do it after each
package (like 'setting up...')

That's all, I have no idea how it works, I'm just a user, so I'm very sorry if I
have wasted your time by ideas that are impossible to implement or just don't
hit the black.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Well, I've got a few ideas:
> 1. don't reload the cache after installing/updating packages. do it the next
> time synaptic starts up (which is done right now anyway, so it seems to me like
> one of the reloads is needless) [just to get this clear, I mean the process
> where it displays a little 'building dependecy tree', etc. on the status bar)

It may be possible to rebuild only parts of the cache (the depcache) after
install/remove. Do you know about the "Ask for quit after install/remove" option
in Setttings/Preferences? It will ask you to exit right after a install then.

> 2. taking several seconds to change about 10 entries smells fishy to me, perhaps
> the whole cache is reloaded instead of only what has changed, this could be
> optimised.

After a "reload" all of the cache needs to be rebuild, but we may get away with
a smaller part of the cache for install/remove.

> That's all, I have no idea how it works, I'm just a user, so I'm very sorry if I
> have wasted your time by ideas that are impossible to implement or just don't
> hit the black.

Thanks for you ideas! It dosn't waste time, it often gives us a new refreshing view
on problems.

Cheers,
 Michael

[Janis Blechert (janis-blechert)]

No, I did not know of "Ask for quit after install/remove", thanks.

[Corey Burger (corey.burger)]

This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 17138.