Scopes are forking multiple copies of 'locate' ruining performance

Bug #1063394 reported by Jon Smirl
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
unity-lens-files
New
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

When I type into the dash HUD the performance is terrible to the point of making the HUD unusable. I ran top while I was typing and I watched dash start up multiple copies of 'locate' as I typed into the HUD.

Look at how much CPU time locate takes on my file system for a non existent string.....

jonsmirl@terra:/var/lib/mlocate$ time locate dkdkdkddk
real 0m4.913s
user 0m4.864s
sys 0m0.032s

As I type three or four copies of 'locate' are getting spawned as the letters are typed in or I hit back space. The effect of this is to completely saturate my I7 CPU to the point of making the system unresponsive.

1) don't start these incremental searches over the entire file system until you have at least four letters to work with. The results from less than four letters are useless because they will match too many files. Limit the short string searches to only installed applications.

2) don't let multiple 'locate' commands get started. If you want to change the string make sure the prior locate is killed first.

3) Get a project started for Ubuntu 13 where an incremental search feature is added to the 'locate' command.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: dash 0.5.7-3ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.27-generic 3.5.5
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Oct 7 15:22:25 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
SourcePackage: dash
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-09-18 (19 days ago)

Revision history for this message
Jon Smirl (jonsmirl) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Edward Donovan (edward.donovan) wrote :

The package 'dash' isn't related to the Unity Dash (or HUD); it's a /bin/sh alternative that predates Unity.

affects: dash (Ubuntu) → unity (Ubuntu)
summary: - dash is forking multiple copies of 'locate' ruining performance
+ HUD is forking multiple copies of 'locate' ruining performance
Omer Akram (om26er)
affects: unity (Ubuntu) → indicator-appmenu (Ubuntu)
Changed in indicator-appmenu:
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in indicator-appmenu (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in indicator-appmenu:
assignee: nobody → Ted Gould (ted)
Ted Gould (ted)
affects: indicator-appmenu (Ubuntu) → unity-scope-home (Ubuntu)
no longer affects: indicator-appmenu
summary: - HUD is forking multiple copies of 'locate' ruining performance
+ Scopes are forking multiple copies of 'locate' ruining performance
Michal Hruby (mhr3)
no longer affects: unity-scope-home (Ubuntu)
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