Idea #11436: Synaptic needs to be indexed

195

Written by fazillatheef the 23 Jul 08 at 11:41. Category: System.
Related to: Synaptic package manager. Status: New

Description

After adding new repositories and clicking reload,Synaptic downloads lists from servers.And after that When I search for an application in synaptic it takes to much time to find me the package.Actually its looking into the list that was downloaded.

I think indexing the package name and description after reloading the package list can improve synaptic performance.

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DjDarkman wrote on the 23 Jul 08 at 11:46

Same goes for adept, it`s way too slow, and file *big* based databases are obsolete, the nicest thing would be is database support, using adept/apt/synaptic with a mysql database for example would be ubercool.

Breakable wrote on the 23 Jul 08 at 17:17

I think sql light would be enought. But I guess its quite a lot of work.

Jon Monreal wrote on the 23 Jul 08 at 17:47

Indeed, this would probably take quite a bit of work.

It's also worth considering that some users might not want this feature, so it might be nice if it could be turned off.

Good idea though.

Ubun2ideas wrote on the 23 Jul 08 at 18:59

A pretty good idea. +1

chipbennett wrote on the 23 Jul 08 at 19:28

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly, this idea is actually suggesting that synaptic index the *repositories*, right?

I think it's a good idea; just want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.

seanlynch wrote on the 23 Jul 08 at 21:44

how about keeping a timestamp stored for the last change to the repository, and checking the stored timestamp against the repository timestamp to see if it even needs to download anything?

That would save a lot of downloading if there have been no changes.

saivann (Moderator) wrote on the 24 Jul 08 at 00:46

Intrepid already includes a version of synaptic which has a quick search bar with search as you type functionnality (like we see in Firefox, thunderbird, etc.). This is very fast and efficient, I wonder if we should mark this idea as already implemented.

I think that what seanlynch asks for is already implemented. Just try it, if you have outdated repositories and that you click on "update", it will take a long time to download, but if you click again on "update", it won't take 3 seconds, because there's nothing new to download.

droetker (Moderator) wrote on the 24 Jul 08 at 05:18

I think he doesn't mean the updates, but the search within the packages (and descriptions)

wolfie2x wrote on the 27 Jul 08 at 06:21

+1

search doesn't seem to be slow for me, but the time to startup and click the search button is around 4-5 seconds, which feels very slow; specially if you just need to check if something is already installed or not.

I guess the delay comes since "All" filter is selected by default. this is apparent if you click some other filter like "installed" and click back "All", you'll see it's slower than all other filters. May be the time taken to fill the list with all entries..

the simplest solution would be to not select the "All" filter by default. just leave the list blank, and populate only when a user clicks a filter.

Tanner85 wrote on the 11 Aug 08 at 23:29

I also feel Synaptic is slow!
I agree, search of packages must be done via MySQL Lite...

All beautifully indexed and fast as light, yeah.

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