Debian bug report logs - #1670, boring messages

Subject: Bug#1670: start-stop-daemon is too slow
Reply-To: Marek Michalkiewicz <marekm@i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl>, debian-bugs@pixar.com
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From: Marek Michalkiewicz <marekm@i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl>
Message-Id: <199510131501.QAA02005@i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 16:01:00 +0100 (MET)
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Package: dpkg
Version: 1.0.0-0

Since start-stop-daemon is run many times during system startup, I think
it is important to make it faster and less memory-hungry (it causes quite
a lot of swapping on my home box with 4MB RAM).  It would be very nice to
have a C version of start-stop-daemon.  I understand, we don't have much
time left right now, but maybe at least for Release 7...

Yeah, I know, Perl is great, but compiled C is small and fast!

Marek

From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: Marek Michalkiewicz <marekm@i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl>
Subject: Bug#1670: Acknowledgement (was: start-stop-daemon is too slow)
In-Reply-To: <199510131501.QAA02005@i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl>
References: <199510131501.QAA02005@i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl>

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Subject: Bug#1670: start-stop-daemon is too slow
Reply-To: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>, debian-bugs@pixar.com
Resent-From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
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Date: Fri, 13 Oct 95 20:25 BST
From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com

Marek Michalkiewicz writes ("Bug#1670: start-stop-daemon is too slow"):
> Package: dpkg
> Version: 1.0.0-0
>
> Since start-stop-daemon is run many times during system startup, I think
> it is important to make it faster and less memory-hungry (it causes quite
> a lot of swapping on my home box with 4MB RAM).  It would be very nice to
> have a C version of start-stop-daemon.  I understand, we don't have much
> time left right now, but maybe at least for Release 7...
>
> Yeah, I know, Perl is great, but compiled C is small and fast!

The speed advantage is why I converted dpkg proper from Perl to C.

However, C is much slower to write than Perl (or other interpreted
scripting languages).

If I was going to rewrite any of the dpkg scripts it would be
update-rc.d, which is really unacceptably slow at the moment.

I shall put this item on the wishlist, but don't expect any movement
this century.

On the other hand, if you were volunteering to write good, clean C
code with all the system calls error-checked and which passes the GCC
flags I'm using for dpkg (-Wall -Wno-implicit -Wwrite-strings
-Wpointer-arith -Wimplicit -Wnested-externs -Wmissing-prototypes
-Wstrict-prototypes) then I'd be happy to include it.

I would say, though, that if you have that much time on your hands I'd
rather you spent it writing a manpage for dpkg.

Ian.

From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Bug#1670: Info received (was Bug#1670: start-stop-daemon is too slow)
In-Reply-To: <m0t3pje-0002ZhZ@chiark.al.cl.cam.ac.uk>
References: <m0t3pje-0002ZhZ@chiark.al.cl.cam.ac.uk>

Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding
this problem report.  It has been forwarded to the developers to
accompany the original report.

If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem,
please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring
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we can identify it as relating to the same problem.

Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message,
unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system.

Ian Jackson
(maintainer, debian-bugs)