eliminate lsb_release from chromium startup

[Martin Pitt]

Binary package hint: chromium-browser

While evaluating boot charts (on armel) I just noticed that starting chromium entails a two second I/O block where it calls lsb_release twice. lsb_release is an utterly heavy program, since it invokes Python. If I eliminate this and hardcode DISTRO and RELEASE, I can halve the startup time from 2.2 s to just over a second.

I think we should instead source /etc/lsb-release and use $DISTRIB_ID and $DISTRIB_RELEASE.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Chris, do you think that's a reasonable thing to do? I'm happy to work on this.

[Fabien Tassin (fta)]

Fix committed in the ".head" branch. Will first be visible in the daily build tomorrow. if it's okay, i'll merge down to the other 3 PPAs and to Maverick.
Lucid will get it at the next upstream release, along with the other fixes.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Splendid, many thanks Fabien!

[Phill Whiteside (phillw)]

from #lubuntu:
(18:01:15) xxxxxxx: So you took out the version of chrome that came with lubuntu and replaced it with a daily build?
(18:01:23) phillw: thye halved the startup time y/day :-)
(18:01:41) phillw: scarra3: yeah, just add the daily ppa and do an update
......
(18:12:18) phillw: sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com  4E5E17B5  then       sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily then just do your update as per how you normally do it.
.......
(18:39:24) xxxxxxx: phillw wow um chrome opens so much faster

I'm happy to confirm it works.

Thanks Martin for spotting it & Fabien for getting it fixed so quickly; on older computers it will make a real difference.

I'm not sure if I have the rights to confirm the fix has worked, so will leave the Status alone.

Regards,

Phill.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package chromium-browser - 5.0.375.125~r53311-0ubuntu1

---------------
chromium-browser (5.0.375.125~r53311-0ubuntu1) maverick; urgency=low

  * New upstream release from the Stable Channel (LP: #612109)
    This release fixes the following security issues:
    - [42736] Medium Memory contents disclosure in layout code. Credit to
      Michail Nikolaev.
    - [43813] High Issue with large canvases. Credit to sp3x of
      SecurityReason.com.
    - [47866] High Memory corruption in rendering code. Credit to Jose A.
      Vazquez.
    - [48284] High Memory corruption in SVG handling. Credit to Aki Helin of
      OUSPG.
    - [48597] Low Avoid hostname truncation and incorrect eliding. Credit to
      Google Chrome Security Team (Inferno).
  * lsb_release is slow so try to source the static file /etc/lsb-release
    instead, and fallback to lsb_release if we didn't get the information we need
    for about:version (LP: #608253). Thanks to pitti for the idea.
    - update debian/chromium-browser.sh.in
 -- Fabien Tassin <email address hidden> Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:03:40 +0200

[Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand)]

The version in lucid-proposed works fine.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package chromium-browser - 5.0.375.125~r53311-0ubuntu0.10.04.1

---------------
chromium-browser (5.0.375.125~r53311-0ubuntu0.10.04.1) lucid-security; urgency=low

  * New upstream release from the Stable Channel (LP: #612109)
    This release fixes the following security issues:
    - [42736] Medium Memory contents disclosure in layout code. Credit to
      Michail Nikolaev.
    - [43813] High Issue with large canvases. Credit to sp3x of
      SecurityReason.com.
    - [47866] High Memory corruption in rendering code. Credit to Jose A.
      Vazquez.
    - [48284] High Memory corruption in SVG handling. Credit to Aki Helin of
      OUSPG.
    - [48597] Low Avoid hostname truncation and incorrect eliding. Credit to
      Google Chrome Security Team (Inferno).
  * lsb_release is slow so try to source the static file /etc/lsb-release
    instead, and fallback to lsb_release if we didn't get the information we need
    for about:version (LP: #608253). Thanks to pitti for the idea.
    - update debian/chromium-browser.sh.in
 -- Fabien Tassin <email address hidden> Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:03:40 +0200