Comment 3 for bug 446498

Installing a new package in a terminal is also slowed down tremendously by this memory and processor hogging bit of python prototype code. An example might help so here it goes. I just installed the new Opera beta by downloading the package and pointing dpkg -i at it. Dpkg went to work...

$ s dpkg -i Downloads/opera_11.00.1111_i386.deb
[sudo] password for frank:
(Reading database ... 395735 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace opera 10.00.4585.gcc4.qt3 (using .../opera_11.00.1111_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement opera ...
Setting up opera (11.00.1111) ...

...and it seemed to stop... did it hang? A quick check:

$ ps aux|grep update
root 31463 73.9 6.8 79676 52856 pts/10 R 13:52 4:22 /usr/bin/python /usr/sbin/update-software-center

Aha, software center again. This took 10 minutes to run. After that, dpkg went on:

Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for python-gmenu ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/desktop.en_US.utf8.cache...
Processing triggers for software-center ...

...and it seemed to stop again! Check again:

$ ps aux|grep update
root 31778 76.0 6.8 79412 52248 pts/10 R 14:02 4:04 /usr/bin/python /usr/sbin/update-software-center --triggered /usr/share/app-install/desktop

Yes, again software-center spoils the party. It took another 10 minutes. Dpkg awoke from this bit of python drudgery:

Processing triggers for menu ...
Processing triggers for python-support ...
Processing triggers for python-central ...

An now, finally, after 21 minutes (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) the package is installed.

Guess what my next action was?

$ s apt-get autoremove --purge software-center
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  cpu-checker* gnome-app-install* libisccfg60* libxcomp3* sessioninstaller* software-center* zeitgeist-core*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 7 to remove and 165 not upgraded.
After this operation, 4,272 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

YES, PLEASE!

This bug report was prepared on a Thinkpad T23 (1.2 GHz PIII-m with 768 MiB) running up to date Natty - which is starting to resemble Debian by virtue of having the obese Ubuntu-specials purged.

A note to the devs: do not use a prototyping language to implement your basic infrastructure. Python may be a nice prototyping language but it is a memory and cpu hog. Please, use a compiled language or at least a less hoggy interpreted language to create essential pieces of infrastructure like the package management system. This stuff needs to run FAST and reliable.