Idea #1797: updatedb picks the wrong time to index.

This idea was marked as implemented the 19 March 08. Available starting Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.

Done!

(22)

Written by zoubidoo the 29 Feb 08 at 20:39. Category: System.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: Implemented

Description

updatedb indexes files but often does so at an inconvenient time.

When I switch on my laptop in the morning, the first thing it does is index. Presumably it was scheduled for 4am but wasn't switched on then so it picked the first opportunity that arose.

Suggestion:
Check whether the keyboard/mouse is in use, if so postpone (a bit like a screensaver)

Tags: (none)

Developer comments

This is implemented in hardy via mlocate.

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Comments

guepe wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 20:53

I *totally* agree. It happens quiet each time I launch my laptop, and is very annoying since it makes my laptop much slower (HDD intensive, and I am starting applications, needing also HDD I/Os)
Your idea is intersting, even if i think this is not related to canonical work.

rawsausage wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 22:34

It's easy to "nice" down.

zoubidoo wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 00:53

Nope, nice doesn't work. updatedb is an IO-bound job not a cpu-bound one. In gutsy there are still priority inversions resulting from IO-intensive tasks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_inversion

HDave wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 02:24

Perhaps the scheduling should be done in anacron instead of cron when Ubuntu is installed on laptops.

Vadim P. wrote on the 9 Apr 08 at 23:38

I'm very glad this have been fixed. :)

zzrough wrote on the 12 Apr 08 at 07:37

This is *not* fixed. This morning my computer has been down for a long time ... Really, (m/s)locate is not used by anybody except maybe advanced users.

Why not removing it from the standard base install when we have tracker? It will still be in universe.

zzrough wrote on the 12 Apr 08 at 07:40

ha sorry, the last update did not recommended to remove slocate, but now ubuntu-desktop does not depend on any locate package which is great. thanks!

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