Suggestion for speeding up pkg
- Reply: Jan Bramkamp : "Re: Suggestion for speeding up pkg"
- Go to: [ bottom of page ] [ top of archives ] [ this month ]
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2023 01:50:40 UTC
I'm just a regular user of FreeBSD, but I'd like to make a suggestion. When installing a large set of packages, such as "pkg install kde5", it can take quite a while to download all that data. Why does pkg download ALL the packages and only then begin to extract and install them? Would it not be a more efficient use of time to calculate dependencies first, then begin downloading the packages in the order in which they are required, and then begin extracting and installing them as they are downloaded instead of waiting for the download to complete before beginning installation? I understand that part of the reason is verification and such, but the default could be extracting and installing to a temporary directory then merging to the live system once everything is downloaded and extracted. Make the behavior configurable by the user. Set sane defaults. Check for sufficient disk space immediately after dependency calculation to make sure space is available for the downloads, the extracted contents, and any other necessities. This will make for a more pleasant user experience.