updatedb runs every day

[Phil Bull]

Binary package hint: slocate

updatedb is set to run as a daily cronjob, so performs a full index every morning when I turn the computer on. However, the whole indexing process can take 10-15 minutes and the computer is slowed-down greatly during this process.

Since updatedb is running at log-in, logging-in to GNOME is very slow, and it can take 3-4 minutes for the desktop and any start-up applications to load fully. Launching applications while updatedb is running is also slow, and the effect is that it is frustrating to use the computer during the indexing process.

New users may find this behaviour particularly confusing, as they are likely to be unaware of updatedb.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

This is probably getting dealt with for Hardy as part of the hardy-reducing-duplication blueprint (linked).

[robinharvey (harvey-robin)]

Hi,

I've noticed that sometimes when updatedb runs during start-up, Gnome Settings Daemon "crashes", or probably a better description would be "times out". The result is that your normal windowing theme is not loaded, and Gnome falls back to it's default which looks very dated and unprofessional. This has happened to me intermittently on every version of Ubuntu I've used (which is most of them, including 7.10, which I'm using at the moment). I'm pretty sure that this timeout is caused by updatedb blocking the hard drive.

By the sounds of it this is getting sorted soon anyways, but I couldn't find any reference to this issue on Launchpad, hence this post!

Thanks
--Robin

[TerryG (tgalati4)]

Triaged to Confirmed. slocate is slow and annoying at startup. Need to move to acron or smarter crontab so it's not messing up a new user's experience.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

slocate has now been replaced by mlocate in the desktop install. Relevant discussion is at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-February/025065.html .