Comment 5 for bug 655831

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NoOp (glgxg) wrote : Re: [Bug 655831] Re: update-apt-xapian-index bogs down system

On 10/06/2010 01:24 PM, Tormod Volden wrote:
> Yes, I think also that bug 131094 is responsible for this.
>
> NoOp, note that when update-apt-xapian-index is run automatically, it is
> launched with nice and ionice to be less intrusive, so "benchmarking"
> with calling it directly is not correct. And high CPU usage is perfectly
> normal if it runs alone.

I notice the same when it runs automatically (CPU wise). I can actually
tell after booting in the morning when it is running... the fans on my
desktop kick on & stay on until it's finished. I also monitor via top &
System Monitor.

>
> What I find abnormal is the accumulated CPU usage, it seems unnecessary
> to do so much computation to update an index. But that can be more poor
> design than a bug. Naturally, most developers have very powerful
> machines, so these things often go unnoticed.

Agree. Other applications that use the xapian backend also tend to have
high cpu overhead - recoll for example.

I didn't find any cpu related bugs at xapian:
http://trac.xapian.org/report/1
or upstream:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?package=apt-xapian-index
http://packages.qa.debian.org/a/apt-xapian-index.html
So I'm not sure how to debug/troubleshoot. Perhaps file an upstream bug?