yum and downloading from smallest to largest

[Jongi]

I thought that this was a feature of yum since sometime between F8 and F9. However it looks like I have somehow lost this in F11 Beta when it was previously something that happened. I did do a yum update since I installed and these where the yum packages updated


[root@localhost ~]# cat /var/log/yum.log | grep yum
Apr 25 15:10:07 Updated: yum-3.2.22-4.fc11.noarch
Apr 25 15:10:21 Updated: yum-utils-1.1.21-2.fc11.noarch
Apr 25 15:15:21 Updated: PackageKit-yum-plugin-0.4.6-4.fc11.i586
Apr 25 15:19:00 Updated: PackageKit-yum-0.4.6-4.fc11.i586


So now I get something like this when I use yum

Downloading Packages:
(1/46): autocorr-en-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 130 kB 00:02
(2/46): hsqldb-1.8.0.10-2.fc11.i586.rpm | 1.9 MB 00:13
(3/46): hyphen-2.4-2.fc11.i586.rpm | 22 kB 00:00
(4/46): hyphen-en-2.4-2.fc11.i586.rpm | 43 kB 00:00
(5/46): java-1.5.0-gcj-1.5.0.0-25.fc11.i386.rpm | 134 kB 00:02
(6/46): java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-19.b14.fc11.i586.rpm | 32 MB 02:05
(7/46): java_cup-0.10k-2.i586.rpm | 199 kB 00:02
(8/46): jdom-1.0-6.5.fc11.i586.rpm | 305 kB 00:02
(9/46): jpackage-utils-1.7.5-2.7.fc11.noarch.rpm | 65 kB 00:00
(10/46): libgcj-4.4.0-1.i586.rpm | 19 MB 01:06
(11/46): libicu-4.0.1-3.fc11.i586.rpm | 6.7 MB 00:28
(12/46): libtextcat-2.2-6.fc11.i586.rpm | 134 kB 00:01
(13/46): lpsolve-5.5.0.14-3.fc11.i586.rpm | 578 kB 00:04
(14/46): lucene-2.3.1-4.4.fc11.i586.rpm | 1.8 MB 00:09
(15/46): mysql-libs-5.1.32-1.fc11.i586.rpm | 2.1 MB 00:10
(16/46): mythes-en-3.0-2.fc11.noarch.rpm | 4.9 MB 00:22
(17/46): openoffice.org-base-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 126 kB 00:01
(18/46): openoffice.org-base-core-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 2.0 MB 00:10
(19/46): openoffice.org-brand-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 463 kB 00:03
(20/46): openoffice.org-calc-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 134 kB 00:02
(21/46): openoffice.org-calc-core-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 8.5 MB 00:36
(22/46): openoffice.org-core-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 96 MB 05:14
(23/46): openoffice.org-draw-3.1.0-10.2.fc11.i586.rpm | 129 kB 00:01

[marko]

I thought it was kind of an irrelevant feature. Why is it better for yum to get the bigger files later?
I'd prefer the order to be alphabetical (like you're seeing now) since it's more likely that related packages will be grouped together that way. Probably the yum coders got feedback to that effect and changed it.

[scottro]

Yes, it changed. I've forgotten the reasons, but if you look at the archive for the testing list, you can find the discussion. It was about two weeks ago, I think.

[robatino]

I think the original motivation for smallest-first was that if the download was interrupted, you would have the largest possible number of complete RPMs. The problem is that small packages might depend on big ones not yet downloaded, so they may not actually be installable, which is what counts. If someone figures out how to implement downloading whole dependency trees from smallest to largest, it might come back.

Edit:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=451047
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=495365
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-April/msg00838.html

[Jongi]

oh interesting. maybe they should have it as a yum.conf preference.

[nirik]

Note that it's in alpha order now... a-z

Doesn't really matter I guess, it's all how you look at it. ;)

[robatino]

oh interesting. maybe they should have it as a yum.conf preference.

I think the following is the last word on that:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-April/msg00872.html

I also just posted some links above where this was discussed.

[Jongi]

hehehehe. it's not a big deal but SV's curt response amused me very much.