From: Petter Reinholdtsen Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2016 13:52:40 +0000 (+0100) Subject: Generated. X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/commitdiff_plain/d43db7a267b6df284ce765acf305588a3313e98a?hp=99cdd493109edaa5a3f6cb3e7b259b30725fee12 Generated. --- diff --git a/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html b/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..d8bdcda0af --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html @@ -0,0 +1,452 @@ + + + + + Petter Reinholdtsen: Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata + + + + + + +
+

+ Petter Reinholdtsen + +

+ +
+ + +
+
Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata
+
25th November 2016
+

Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian +installation system, observing how using +eatmydata +could speed up the installation quite a bit. My testing measured +speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around +1000 packages from within the installer. The eatmydata package +provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing. This is a bit +risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will +stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a +machine crashes at an inconvenient time. But for an installation, if +the machine crashes during installation the process is normally +restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed +up the process make perfect sense. + +

I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable +eatmydata, +but did not have time to push it any further. But a few months ago I +picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer +Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation +speedup in Debian. Thanks to our cooperation There is now an +eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply +enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the +quicker installations. It can be enabled using preseeding. The +following untested kernel argument should do the trick:

+ +
+preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
+
+ +

This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i +environment early in the installation sequence. Having it installed +in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just +after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian +system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata. This is enough to +speed up the installation process. There is a proposal to +extend the idea a bit further +by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf, but I have not +tested its impact.

+ +
+ +
Tags: debian, debian edu, english.
+ + +
+ + + + + +

+ Created by Chronicle v4.6 +

+ + +