Very slow software installation

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krasimirpetrov

Very slow software installation

Post by krasimirpetrov »

Hello, all.

I have one more problem with Linux Mint.

Installing any software - via the terminal or through the manager is too slow. For example, I installed a nginx and php and took at least 1.30 hours today.

Yesterday the system is upgraded for more than 4 hours.


Now - i try to install kubuntu-dekstop - It's already 3 hours and the installation is not over yet.

Where to look for the problem, it's pretty slow.
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catweazel
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by catweazel »

krasimirpetrov wrote: Sat Jun 30, 2018 1:26 pm Now - i try to install kubuntu-dekstop - It's already 3 hours and the installation is not over yet.

Where to look for the problem, it's pretty slow.
You don't look for the problem yet. You wait until the current operation finishes or fails.
"There is, ultimately, only one truth -- cogito, ergo sum -- everything else is an assumption." - Me, my swansong.
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trytip
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by trytip »

you probably need to switch to a faster mirror. when you say slow software installation what does that actually mean?
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all41
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by all41 »

Hi krasimirpetrov,
What is your internet connection type, isp, speed?
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krasimirpetrov

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by krasimirpetrov »

My internet connection is good - downloading fast - http://www.speedtest.net/result/7436549217.png.
By slow I mean - that unpacking operations, installing and configuration take too much time.

It seems to me that the recording and reading operations of the SSD are slow, but I did not have the problem with Ubuntu and OpenSuse.
krasimirpetrov

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by krasimirpetrov »

I think I fixed the problem. I have two hardware - SSD and HDD. I had put a var on the HDD and after I moved it to the SSD, the system started to work faster.

What is the recommended size for the var directory? SDD is 500GB and now Var is 60GB - how is it?
gm10

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by gm10 »

krasimirpetrov wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:34 am What is the recommended size for the var directory? SDD is 500GB and now Var is 60GB - how is it?
That depends a lot on your system and installed software, but at that size I'm suspecting some runaway log files, check the size of /var/log or maybe even better, use the provided Disk Usage Analyzer to check all of /var.

For reference, /var currently comes in at 600 MB on my system.
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by Pierre »

why do you need a separate /var directory? any reason for that ?.

the /var directory on this machine is 1,9Gb & has 9 sub-directories in it. . .
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by catweazel »

Pierre wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:54 am why do you need a separate /var directory? any reason for that ?.
To extend the life of an ssd is the usual reason.
"There is, ultimately, only one truth -- cogito, ergo sum -- everything else is an assumption." - Me, my swansong.
krasimirpetrov

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by krasimirpetrov »

Тhe var directory is small in size, just when the hdd system worked slowly.
Now, after move to SSD - the system is working normally.

The reason was the extension of the SSD life.
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all41
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by all41 »

catweazel wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:56 am
Pierre wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:54 am why do you need a separate /var directory? any reason for that ?.
To extend the life of an ssd is the usual reason.
This sounds akin to 'moving swap to ram' to increase speed :lol: :lol:
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gm10

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by gm10 »

all41 wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 10:03 am
catweazel wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:56 am
Pierre wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:54 am why do you need a separate /var directory? any reason for that ?.
To extend the life of an ssd is the usual reason.
This sounds akin to 'moving swap to ram' to increase speed :lol: :lol:
Not really. /var gets constantly written to, so if you're concerned about yor SSD's write cycles there's nothing wrong with moving it off the SSD:
krasimirpetrov

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by krasimirpetrov »

That's the case, but then, in my case, the system worked very slowly. What this may be due to?
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trytip
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by trytip »

what's the speed of your ssd ? sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda replace a in sda with your drive try the command also in live mint when you get a chance
depending on how new your ssd is test a newer kernel
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krasimirpetrov

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by krasimirpetrov »

HDD:
Timing cached reads: 10376 MB in 2.00 seconds = 5197.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 406 MB in 3.01 seconds = 134.98 MB/sec
SSD:
Timing cached reads: 15222 MB in 1.99 seconds = 7630.21 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 1506 MB in 3.00 seconds = 501.52 MB/sec
This the result from test with live mint:
HDD:
Timing cached reads: 19846 MB in 1.99 seconds = 9949.71 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 408 MB in 3.01 seconds = 135.66 MB/sec
SSD
Timing cached reads: 17210 MB in 1.99 seconds = 8627.26 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 1540 MB in 3.00 seconds = 513.21 MB/sec
I tried with two different cores and versions of - Linux Mint 18.3 and Linux Mint 19 - the result was the same - when the var is on the hdd system is slow.
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by catweazel »

all41 wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 10:03 am
catweazel wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:56 am
Pierre wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:54 am why do you need a separate /var directory? any reason for that ?.
To extend the life of an ssd is the usual reason.
This sounds akin to 'moving swap to ram' to increase speed :lol: :lol:

Code: Select all

tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev
tmpfs /var/log tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev
No. For an SSD on a machine with decent RAM, it pays to move tmp and logs to memory.
"There is, ultimately, only one truth -- cogito, ergo sum -- everything else is an assumption." - Me, my swansong.
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all41
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Re: Very slow software installation

Post by all41 »

I have the tmpfs to ram on the 17.3 hdd already, but not the 19 yet.
Moving the logs to ram sounds interesting. These are not ssd,
but 15k velociraptors with quite decent read/write speeds, and there is 24gb ram to use.

I have a 860 evo that I will put into play when I get 19 fully tweaked.
I did install the beta for a preliminary comparison, but did not notice an immediate wow factor.

I plan to dd the tweaked 19 hd over to ssd and have both bootable via bios for more critical comparison.
Everything in life was difficult before it became easy.
srq2625

Re: Very slow software installation

Post by srq2625 »

gm10 wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:54 am
krasimirpetrov wrote: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:34 am What is the recommended size for the var directory? SDD is 500GB and now Var is 60GB - how is it?
That depends a lot on your system and installed software, but at that size I'm suspecting some runaway log files, check the size of /var/log or maybe even better, use the provided Disk Usage Analyzer to check all of /var.

For reference, /var currently comes in at 600 MB on my system.
Concur. I had the same issue with a fresh install on an old system. /var/log/kern.log was going crazy. Reading the tail end of it provided a clue.

Figure out which log file is going crazy and then ... In a terminal window run:

Code: Select all

tail -f <filename>
This will continuously display the tail end of the file and show you what's being written there. That should provide you the clue you need.
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