Comment 19 for bug 635834

Sure a simulated "heavy load" is the only credible test
for whether there is a degradation in rpmdb I/O behavior over time.

There are plain and simply too many other factors, like
file system type, kernel version, Berkeley DB version,
RPM implementation, etc etc to compare results meaningfully.

I've already asked privately for opinions re "time degradation"
from users who I know have long running rpm implementations
and whose opinion I trust. (I trust your report and methodology
but the analysis is a bit premature so far. Nothing personal, jmho ;-)

And a test script isn't that hard, I have several.

Still I'm going to be surprised if there is performance degradation
over time with RPM+BDB.

Degradation is a very different issue than whether rpmdb
I/O is optimal with "rpm -qa", I already know zillions of
inefficiencies in rpmdb I/O handling, and have been actively
addressing those issues since db-4.8.24 was released in September.